


Heat

by Out_Of_Custody



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: (i am not a doctor so sorry for mucking it up maybe), Akira appreciates his wife, Alcohol, Baking, Bourdieu!, Drunkenness, F/M, Falling In Love, Haruhi is Queen of the Warm Spots, Host Club family feels, Hypothermia, Kyoya doesn't do well with hot temperatures, Mitsukuni is an accomplice, Morinozuka family feels, No Beta, Onsen, Sappho - Freeform, Sort Of, Takashi gets revenge, Takashi is worried, Traditions, White Duvet Mountain, and now this happened, and probably a chaperon, and she very much appreciates him too, and then he is helpful, blizzards!, but nobody told my muse, fluff mostly, it doesn't always need a label, it was supposed to be a oneshot, legendary Morinozuka scarf, no bueno, oh Zuka club, pottymouth Hani, protective servants, quiet courting, silliness, slowly, that i know nothing about because we don't have them, unbetaed, wholesome marriage is what i'm saying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 20:05:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 31,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15915327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Out_Of_Custody/pseuds/Out_Of_Custody
Summary: It’s the afternoon of her seventh day outside of Taka-nii’s room when he returns from Judo-Club to the absolute shock of his life.Because Taka-nii has grown fat since he’s been gone. And he’s sprouted a second head.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have, so long, debated with myself whether or not to post this because... well, honestly, because I am embarrassed about posting it. This story is somehow the product of a girly-pink-glittery-princessy-part of me that I sometimes feel very difficult about sharing. BUT this is also a labor of love, and I am happy with it - and so, I share. 
> 
> I hope you like it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...which is kind of like a prologue

 

It’s an old building – most honorable the more it gets on in years. She doesn’t know if it is heresy to address the spirit of a house, but she finds herself doing it either way: putting up a second incense stick next to the one she lights daily for her mother. Maybe this is why, for years, the electricity doesn’t give in as easily as it does in neighboring condominiums when hard weathers hit. Maybe this is why the plumbing works with a little less groaning. Maybe this is why the central heating takes several more years to need a complete overhaul than it does in the neighboring condominiums.

However, as time goes on and Haruhi gets more knowledgeable in the ways of housing, she starts to realize that renovations are in order. Most front doors have needed replacement due to the cheap wood contorting with the weather changes in their equally cheap frames; the large water heater in the basement needs layman-expertise to be read (expertise that has, coincidentally, been accrued by the tenants) and there are windows that should not be opened lest they never shut again.

The small group of inhabitants of the condominium have acclimatized to these circumstances – Haruhi likes to think of it as living in peace with the house-spirit. It must have been a hard-fought battle, she thinks with chattering teeth, to finally have it give in to old age and the circumstances of weather.

Then again Tokyo is unusually cold this winter – schools have closed farther off in the country, whole villages have been snowed in and the further upthe mountains they are, the greater the likelihood of them calling for governmental aid during this proving time. National News have been broadcasting the daring adventures of military helicopter teams evacuating families from the deadly chill nonstop. Sapporo suffers from the lack of tourism; Japan’s economy suffers with it.

So no, she cannot fault the spirit of the house for falling victim to environmental circumstances. She just wishes it would have been at another time.

The harsh winter chill bites at her fingers which are growing numb around her pencil, her nose is in a perpetual state of running which is why she has shamefully resorted to wiping it with the edge of the blanket wrapped around her, her ears might be in an equally desolate state but she cannot feel them any longer and can’t say for certain.

For the first time in a while, Haruhi is actually looking forward to the hours spent at school.

While her relationship with Ouran had started out filled with trepidation and hesitant enthusiasm, it had very quickly turned into one filled with exasperation and perpetual stress, sprinkled with slight moments of reprieve. The latter most often experienced either when outside of the – admittedly far-reaching – influence of the Host Club or in near vicinity of its tallest member, who is basically synonymous with the word ‘quiet’.

Currently, however, her relationship with Ouran experiences a second wind.

Because: Central Heating.

Central heating is a gift given by the Gods and Haruhi is not about to let it pass her by without making the most of it. There’s a reason she’s been braving the library more often recently; a reason why she’s the first to occupy a table closest to the wall-mounted heating and a reason why she’s been making it to the Music Room with only minutes to spare. Or why she has moved her table closer to the Music Room’s heating units.

She might be a sniveling, shivering mess at home but she’s _Queen of the Warm Spots_ around Ouran (Kyoya allows her moving her table because her designations are as much in favor of the warmer spots as she is).

There is, however, a down-side to sticking to the oases of warmth wherever she can find them: moving out of their protective circle proves just _how_ cold this winter truly is.

“Stupid landlord.”, she growls under her breath as she reaches for the tin-can filled with loose Oolong for her next designation. “Stupid cheapskate.”, she adds, ignoring her hypocrisy. “Stupid, stupid _weather_.” The prep room is freezing. Haruhi is attempting to warm herself by stoking the flames of ire within her – it’s only partially successful.

“Stupid-”

“-mph.”

She should have noticed Mori-sempai. Conditional tense being the operative here. It should have been real hard to overlook his 6 foot 4 standing in the doorway ere he had moved into the room – probably to help her. Haruhi has been otherwise occupied and hadn’t noticed the foot under her heel unmaking her entire sense of balance.

Rolled tea leaves spill on the tiled floor around them.

 _Stupid debt—_ she sighs mentally, wishing she could voice the thought out loud. Beneath her, the curiously warm body of Takashi Morinozuka makes an inquiring sound.

“Gomen.”, she shivers her apology, making to stand on unsteady feet and increasingly unwilling to leave the circle of warmth that is being provided by the body of the multiple National Kendo Champion. She doesn’t usually put much value in it, but if rumors are true, Japan looks forward to sending him to the World Kendo Championships as soon as he is out of High school.

“Aah.”, he answers quietly, unfolding from his hapless position on the floor and pulling himself up just behind her – the room is barely large enough for one person, two is asking for it to burst at the seams – and she sighs at the warmth emitting from him. Mori-sempai is like a personified heater, she wonders if she could get away with draping herself over him under some pretense.

“Ah. Can you reach the pale-rose tea-kettle, Mori-sempai?”, she asks instead of giving her mouth lee-way to voice the question whether or not it is his dedication to his sport of choice that has vetted his metabolism to the point of his body running, surely, hotter than that of the average male.

“Ah?”, he lowers his chin to give her a curious look that she responds to by shrugging, relishing in the drag of her blazer-clad shoulder against the warmth of his front.

“You’re all giants or accomplished in martial arts-”, she starts by way of explanation, “I usually just… fumble and pray that nothing breaks.” _Lest it goes to my debt._ She doesn’t say it but perhaps her face conveys the message, because her upper-class-man reaches to cradle the porcelain in his large hands without much effort before bringing it down to hover just before her.

“Arigatou.”

“Ah.”

He moves away and she immediately misses his warmth. _Stupid Kendo Champions._ She cannot think it with real heat and turns back to more promising victims.

 

\---

 

He notices her proclivity to seek out all sources of warmth – when he goes to the library, he finds her practically glued to the heating-units as if she were a wet cloth and when she moves her table in the Music Room to stand well within the heating radius of the unit nearest to her, he realizes that Kyoya, too, must take notice.

He just hadn’t thought her quest for warm places would extend to him.

And, in all honesty, it probably wouldn’t have if it weren’t for the fact that winter had claimed all of Japan in an icy grip like it never had before. National News are speaking of record temperatures and the coldest winter yet.

As an observational specialist among the Host Club, second only to Kyoya Ootori – and he’s not necessarily wanting to compete with the anal man in that particular department – he is among the first to recognize the signs of impaired health in their fellow Club Member: like the involuntary shivers that rattle her body the very moment she makes even one step out of the circle of warmth provided by the heating units, or the sheen of sweat that seems to cling to her brow no matter how warm or cold her surroundings are. Takashi has been trained to notice these symptoms and act accordingly – he feels woefully inadequate, watching Haruhi battle with her deteriorating health.

Which is why he starts to follow her around. Because he likes to think that his observations lend him somewhat of an advantage in regard to their female Host and he considers her to be stubborn enough to work herself into the ground. He, too, considers her ignorant enough to actually collapse in a show of an overwrought body before heeding the warning signals of her physical transport.

When he enters the tiny preparation room a few minutes after her, he is surprised to catch her angry ranting at the whole world. It’s enough to not feel her foot on his and stop her fall by any other action than catching her against him as they both succumb to gravity and their lack of balance.

Maybe this is when she starts to recognize him as a potential source of heat. It is most definitely the moment when he realizes just how far gone her body really is in terms of impaired health – because there is sweat on her brow, but her body is also fighting shivers that translate through her blazer and onto his front.

He becomes truly worried three days later, when Haruhi finds herself too tired to actually respond to either Tamaki’s or the twin’s usual greetings and, instead, makes a straight bee-line for Honey’s couch – the broadest available. Ignoring his own person already occupying it, she curls under Honey’s blanket.

He blinks.  
And watches her breathing even out within a minute.

“Ano...”

“Is Haru-chan okay?”, Mitsukuni asks before either of the Unholy Triumvirate can start screaming and it’s a credit to his quiet maturity hiding underneath layers of Usa-chan and cake that he manages to not look upset at Haruhi hogging his blanket.

“It would seem her health is not the best right now.”, Kyoya interjects before Takashi can even voice the carefully selected words that had been sitting on the tip of his tongue. He swallows them down again and says nothing as the rest of the Host Club devolves into hysterical crying that lasts even until after the doors have opened.

Takashi is lucky that Haruhi’s designations are usually the shy and quiet kind either way because Kyoya piles them unto him; little black book filling with numbers he is certain will end up added to Haruhi’s debt. He wonders why it is that the Shadow King insists on accruing it. Haruhi is well along to her thousand customers and if she keeps on charming them the way she currently is, there is not a doubt in his mind that she would be free of the financial obligation either by the end of this year or the early start of the next. He hopes it’ll be the former, he wants to see her free of the ludicrous debt before he graduates from Ouran – wants to see her come to them out of her own volition, if ever she would, rather than out of a sense of obligation.

Haruhi’s eyes open some time towards the middle of the Hosting Hours but a short glance shared between the two of them results in her pushing a little more firmly into his side and closing her eyes again – he allows it, cautiously settles his large palm to wind around the small of her back and skillfully ignores Kyoya’s flashing camera as well as the silent sounds of _Moe_ coming from the girls in front of him.

The Host at his side sleeps deeply through the three hours.

And despite the fact that she stands without problem once Honey wakes her and apologizes quietly, accepting, without comment, the addition to her debt, Takashi cannot help but keep his eyes on her throughout the next days.

Which is how he realizes that her body is intriguingly slow-moving in its sickness; probably because Haruhi instinctively, but halfheartedly, seeks out the best remedies to her situation. One noon he finds her collecting enough money from her pockets to order a ginger-tea in the cantina and she has an unusual amount of oranges packed in her bento; she still sticks close to heating units and if they have the misfortune of not being cloaked in rich woods it has happened – once, to his knowledge – that she will unashamedly drape herself over them.

It occurs to him that this might be why her fever is slow in the taking. That her body seems undecided whether to be sick or not.

She does not fall asleep during Hosting Hours ever again – even though it looks like a torrid battle of will between her stubborn brain and her body – but she gratefully sinks into the heat of his proximity whenever he stands close in the prep room or sits next to her on the sofa because Mitsukuni has fallen asleep in direct consequence of his sugar rush.

Her body is small and lithe against his and he knows from experience just how little she weighs. Which is additionally worrying, considering that sickness generally draws on the fat resources of a body – fat that Haruhi simply does not seem to have.

And because Takashi is nothing if not a servant by nurture, he accommodates to her recent bout of heat-location by allowing her certain liberties with his body (Kyoya doesn’t protest because the club’s profits sky-rocket; Honey doesn’t protest because most of the time he cannot quite find the words for it).

 

**

 

It starts with a blazer that is too wide for him – one of the very first he’s acquired this year. The school-tailors generally tend to assume that his height correlates positively with the width of his mid-section. Which it doesn’t. Takashi has learned not to take offense.

Nevertheless, when he wakes up one morning to see the snow falling in thick flakes, quietly floating to join their brethren in coating the once green-brown earth, he makes the hesitant, if very conscious, decision to reach for the botched blazer instead of the tightly fitting one. In order to make up for the ill-sewn midsection, he leaves it unbuttoned – which might not actually be the polite thing to do, but it works for his designations if Kyoya’s furious scribbling can be correctly interpreted.

It also pays off when he wanders into the prep room shortly after Haruhi has made her way there and he finds her pressing her teeth together harshly in a bid to stop their chattering. When he positions himself behind her to help her reach for a few ingredients that he that have been on lower shelves just yesterday, he is not disappointed: Haruhi melts into the open lapels of his blazer and doesn’t move away for several breaths during which he doesn’t necessarily _still_ so much as slow his movements down to avoid jostling her.

He checks his own forehead when she is gone again.

But he continues to wear the over-large blazer, relishing in the moments when he will steal after her and allow her some reprieve against his front while he helps her to fix tea. It happens more often than he originally anticipates and leaves him with a queer sensation similar to that of post-battle-adrenaline-surge. To quell his nerves he resorts to the tried and tested method of drinking tea - quite a lot more than he normally would.

He is only marginally surprised when Haruhi picks up on it and takes it unto her to prepare his cups personally. She must, too, be watching his reactions because she learns quickly that there are days for Kukicha and there are days for Houjicha. This hypothesis is especially proven when she prepares a perfectly done cup of Koicha for him a day after a tournament – he can not remember a time when he’s held a tea cup in his hands for as long as he’s held this one.

When he reaches for the over-sized sweater to go with the blazer one morning he rationalizes that it’s merely because Haruhi’s not-sickness has been holding for two-and-a-half weeks now and despite the fact that he’s never seen somebody stare down sickness, he admits that he is a little curious whether Haruhi Fujioka will be the first person within his circle of acquaintances to do so if only by sheer will and stubbornness.

Even though he cannot fathom how it could possibly help her, he wears the over-sized sweater. But when he checks his own forehead for elevated temperature there is none to be found.

Her health declines despite his clandestine efforts and her stubbornness to the contrary. Which is why, when she shakes even sitting or standing still, he knowingly abandons Mitsukuni – with the fervent prayer that his cousin might forgive him for the blatant slight on their families’ dynamics – and shadows Haruhi fully. Not, granted, that she notices any of it. He is surprised she even manages to take proper notes in class considering her state.

“It’s a little like watching a robot.”, Kaoru admits with a shrug that belies his worries. Hikaru’s sour mood implies her inattention towards the twins in class.

When he steps after her into the preparation room now, she has less compunctions about moving into the radius of his heat, pressing her back into his front while she labors over the hot water and tea-leaves (hopefully any and all bacteria she could potentially transmit will be sufficiently dealt with by the heat of the water lest she involuntarily infect half of the student body and be served the debt in consequence). It’s only when she turns one day – cheeks too ruddy, forehead too pale, mouth too white – and slips her hands unashamedly under his pullover that he short-circuits for a lack of better wording.

“Cold.”, he doesn’t know if his statement is just that or an admonishment too. But the blocks of ice that have to be her fingers shock him even through his layers and reflexively his elbows clamp inwards, trapping the chill against his sides where she rests her palms.

“You don’ say, sempai.”, is the smart, mumbled, answer he gets when her forehead comes to his chest. He notes the stuffiness of her voice besides her blatant disregard of physical propriety while they wait for the water to boil; worrying signs that her sickness is more advanced than he would have been able to tell from a distance.

 

**

 

It is therefore only logical that he should want to check up on her. Only rational that he finds himself at her doorstep the next day. It’s natural to be concerned for a friend who has not been showing any signs of slowing down despite their obvious ill-health.

He feels like a michelin-man-shaped-idiot standing in front of her door. But he knocks, tupperware in hand. Thick flocks threaten to bury him alive in their flurry if he dares to wait any longer than he already has – even so, he cannot justify breaking down the meager wood merely to enter. He knocks again after fourteen deep breaths. This time, Haruhi actually opens the door. Third time charm and all that.

“Sempai?”

He doesn’t move from his position, but he does nod at her – curtly. She is dressed as one would expect of anyone who’s had the brains to stay inside during this weather and he would check his forehead for temperature again, considering his being out and about, if it wouldn’t necessitate him undressing out in the open. He eyes her critically even as his arms move up to offer the tupperware wordlessly.

Her skin’s pallor has taken on frightening shades of white but the sweat he’s anticipated to dot her brow is missing. She is shivering at intervals, heavily, forcing her mouth shut so hard he can see the spasms of her jaw-muscles work to contain the involuntary movement of her chattering teeth.

It’s only when he realizes that the expected gust of _warmth_ from the inside has never come that he bites his right-hand-mitt off to reach for her face.

She is _glacial_.

 

\---

 

She remembers the door-bell going… or the door… something… something was with the door… someone was at the door… had been at the door. Her Japanese homework had been getting strangely difficult at that time and she’d started reading passages three or four times to get some kind of grip on their syntax and logic.

What she doesn’t remember is how she got _here_. Because here is not in her home. Her home is cold. Even under the blankets. Also… she’s very certain she’s been dressed at home.

And it is warm here. And she is… she _feels_ under-dressed to say the least.

But… She sighs and worms deeper into the blankets, ears warming with a rumbling puff of air somewhere behind her. It’s _warm_ here. And she’s not going to give that up anytime soon.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which there are introductions, of sorts

 

She hadn’t even put up a fight when he’d lifted her onto his shoulder and made for the car. There would, usually, be at least a squeak of indignation (there had been flailing limbs the first few times he’d picked her up, but she’d learned that even kicking and screaming wouldn't persuade him to let her down) but it had left out even when he’d piled her into the waiting car. If anything her lack of response to his actions had been the proverbial nail to seal the coffin that was his assumption of her state of mind and body.

And just as he had closed the door of the vehicle and signaled the chauffeur, just as he'd started to take off his gear, she had started to shake. Uncontrollably. Her muscles had seized in a way he’d only ever read about and her whole body had propelled itself into violent shivers in an attempt to create enough warmth to survive. There had been times when his breath had stuttered at seeing Mitsukuni in a dangerous situation. But his cousin is well-versed in martial arts and wise beyond his appearance such that most of the time his worry proves unfounded. Haruhi, however, is a different matter – and he couldn’t possibly compare the panicked squeeze of his chest to any emotional response he had experienced heretofore.

Even now, in hindsight.

Her small form is sleep-heavy against his, curled protectively into the soothing warmth of the blankets wrapped around her and the additional heat his body helps create underneath the one he has plopped over them. Shivers have given way to lazy goosebumps whenever the edge of the top-most blanket would slip over her bare shoulder and reveal to his gaze her naked flesh decorated only with the tiniest strap of silk from her undershirt. He has never understood the allure of a neck until now.

He still kind of wishes he were ignorant of these matters.

But she is warm; out of harm’s way. And while it’s possible that exhaustion fever may be setting in soon, for now he has overstayed his welcome. No matter the tantalizing view of her neck.

“Troublesome Trinity.”, he grouses without ill-intent when he slides the rice-paper-doors of his room open to reveal his brother and Yasuchika with Hani spearheading the triangularly arranged un-welcoming-committee. His cousin’s sweet composure seems to have been left at the gates of the compound, what with the fierce look he is receiving as he moves out into the hallway, quietly closing the door behind him. He has a feeling what this is going to be about – he’s a little surprised at Mitsukuni.

“You’re lucky we didn’t call the Spanish Inquisition.”, Yasuchika snaps back with a curious hint of ferocity in his juvenile, cracking voice. Satoshi doesn’t say anything; studiously avoiding Takashi’s look. The floor must be very interesting today.

He doesn’t reply and instead meets his cousin’s stare head-on, eyebrow lifting in question. They must think him seriously lacking in scruples to have considered calling their fathers.

The small-blond makes a sound of blasé indignation: “You’d deserve it for the way you’ve been treating Haru-chan.”, he admonishes; but there’s a question in there too, a demand for explanation.

“Ah.”, he will need liquids and nourishing foods for when her fever sets in, he remembers, starting towards the kitchen – three pairs of eyes follow him, but don’t move from their spot in front of his door. He turns, tilts his head in silent invitation.

 

**

 

“Went to her home.”, he starts, pointing towards the tupperware of thawed soup, as he searches the cupboards for suitable cups and bowls. It might be a while until she will be able to properly dine again; not that fever is necessarily debilitating but he has a feeling his friend is about to come down with a nasty case of it. Better be prepared than caught off guard in a moment of stress. “Found her hypothermic.”

He doesn’t talk much more then, because Mitsukuni is well aware of the state Haruhi has been in as of late and he is capable of figuring out the details by himself. Aside from the ones even he himself hasn’t managed to clear up yet.

Such as the question of _why_ she would probably refrain from turning on the heating in her own home despite her fevered state and risk such severe under-cooling of her body.

For now, however, he will keep her in his room, on his futon, under layers of blankets that keep him from unintentionally touching her tempting form that he is going to have to meditate on – because there is something about the whole scenario he hasn’t quite _understood_ yet – while also improving her health as far as he can.

He does, however, leave the door open.  
Because despite the fact that they hadn't explicitly touched the subject, his brother and his cousins do have a point concerning propriety.

 

\---

 

The warmth might be an illusion.

A trick of her mind to alleviate the constant sensation of a chill so bone-deep it rattled her from the inside out given that the central heating had resigned from duty a few days ago and the sum total of the condominiums had been leading a life without central heating during a record temperature low. The landlord had finally acquiesced that renovations were in order. Considering most of the inhabitants were part of the 50+ age bracket, concerned tenants had quickly flown the nests to warmer regions at their children’s or grandchildren’s homes. Reflecting on it, the only reason she’d remained might have been her already fever-impaired rationale. Although she cannot quite think of any place she would have taken into consideration of going to even under other circumstances. Mei’s… maybe.

The thing is, when she opens her eyes, she’s only marginally surprised to find that she’s definitely not at home anymore. The warmth is not an illusion. And it’s ridiculously comforting in her back.

Unwilling to destroy the magic of the heat, she moves closer to the source, sighs as it makes more solid contact with her back, soothing her anxious and never-ending search for _more warmth_ in winter.

Haruhi cannot remember a time when she hasn’t attempted to drown herself in woolen pullovers come the snow-season in order to conserve as much warmth as possible. True Wool Pullovers are one of the very few things she willingly splurges on, having learned that the better the quality of the wool, the better its warming properties.

Certainly winter is as beautiful a season as the other three and she loves a lot of its aspects.  
Just… not The Cold.

And thus thankful when the warmth moves even _closer_ , ensconcing her fully in its embrace that slowly registers to be very real and not at all illusory, she gives over to the comfort of having somehow found the perfect source of heat – not too hot, not too cold, just _right_ – and lets herself be lulled back to sleep by the sense of security it gives her.

 

\---

 

On the third day since the arrival of the mysterious Haruhi Fujioka at their residence, they are graced with her-their… _her_  company.

While Satoshi has been aware of the general presence of his brother’s co-host, thanks to the well-developed intelligence network of the servants’ grapevine, he had needed a bit of explanation as to why Hani-nii had braved the proximity of his own brother over the supposedly endangered honor of one Haruhi Fujioka. Given aforementioned grapevine, he is convinced that the whole house has been made aware of the actual biological gender of their guest. The fact that their parents haven’t actually protested yet might just mean that they are currently not opposed to her residence.

Satoshi supposes it’s curiosity on his mother’s side and his father’s tendency to indulge her whims concerning social engagements (a forte she had in a more developed capacity than his father).

When he comes back from his morning training on that third day – by when Taka-nii will already have completed his and have Hani-nii roused – he is surprised to find his brother in the hallway, instead of the confines of his room. He is so excited that he doesn’t check his indoor-voice – as kaa-san’s immediate presence at his side informs him.

“Yo, Taka-”, he stalls before finishing the sentence. Not merely for the lowering of his volume upon the insistent and very thorough stare of his mother, but also for close inspection of his brother. There is something off about his silhouette. “Taka-nii.” A blink. “You have something on your shoulder.”

Taka-nii barely reacts other than patting the mop of hair that is draped over his shoulder in a feat that should be anatomically impossible when it heaves a tired sigh at the comment. “Ah.”

He has, heretofore, witnessed the propensity of one Haruhi Fujioka to seek out heat sources without shame whenever he had visited nii-san – even going as far as to drape herself over free-standing heating units all over the scholastic campus. And yet… that had been _before_ the break of her fever. And he doesn’t doubt Taka-nii, ever, so the only reason she has been allowed outside of the room where he’s been caring for her during the last days (he'd left the doors open so as to facilitate supervision and allow for the assurance of the preserved honor of the young lady) is that she must be well-along the road to health. But to have this behavior extend beyond sickness?

“She’s tiny.”, says the person to his left – confronted, for the first time, with the Princess of the Host Club.

“Kaa-san.”, comes his reflexive answer, slightly exasperated.

Taka-nii doesn’t bat an eye at their interaction. Where tou-san and he are likely to be found honing their skills through sword-play, kaa-san has taken it unto herself to sharpen the skills of her more verbose child by engaging him in verbal battles of wit. Bon-mot and admonishment are a common form of dialogue between them.

Haruhi is – is the thing. Even draped over the shoulder of his nii-san like some humanoid belted plaid.

“Satoshi.”, his mother retorts dryly, as if in greeting; as if she hadn’t just rudely commented on the diminutive figure of one of nii-san’s friends.

“Rude.”, he reminds her of the glaringly obvious, motioning towards the immobile figure of his brother and their guest.

His mother has the gall to shrug, giving the moving lump on his brother’s shoulder a look that screams of need to nurture (if he remembers correctly, mother has always hoped for a daughter). “Somebody had to give you your mouth. And it wasn’t going to be your father...”

“ _Kaa-san!_ ”

 

**

 

When, after three more days, Takashi can finally find it in himself to separate from Haruhi long enough to explain the situation to his parents, Satoshi is not surprised that she’s allowed to stay.

Upon further investigation it turns out that the condominiums, of which one is usually inhabited by Haruhi and her father, are in dire need of repairs and the landlord had wanted to wait until summer to make it easier on the inhabitants to find a place to stay for the duration of the renovations. The centralized heating unit, apparently, had had other plans and had given up entirely, leaving the tenants to flee the premises a lot earlier – except for Haruhi.

Why she had not called her father or her friends remains a mystery to him. Because even though he understands that she doesn’t have a second residence to use instead, he had been under the impression that these things are exactly what friends are for.

It comes to him only much later – when he braves the monumental chill of the outsides with his nii-san in order to fetch her most important school-supplies as well as some fresh clothing that is not borrowed from two generations of Morinozuka-sprouts (kaa-san’s wording) – that Haruhi-san’s life pretty much evolves around Ouran. Especially ever since her joining the Host Club there has, probably, not been a lot of time to socialize outside of given parameters, considering, too, her need to stay on top of her class in order to remain at the school.

He imagines it takes a lot of work and devotion to remain on top of everything and everyone.

This particular hypothesis is especially proven when – once Haruhi has been informed of her indefinite stay at the Morinozuka compound (Taka-nii makes it known that she has no reason to return to a frozen home and that he will physically stop her if he has to) - she can generally be found huddled in at least three blankets, never too far from where his brother can observe her, bending over her homework or additional course-load to get ahead of her peers.

That she has managed to remain there despite her sickness is, frankly, enough evidence to her work-ethic.

 

**

 

It’s the afternoon of her seventh day outside of Taka-nii’s room when he returns from Judo-Club to the absolute shock of his life.

Because Taka-nii has grown fat since he’s been gone. And he’s sprouted a second head.

It takes several moments, before he realizes that the second head has the wrong hair-color and sprouts just underneath his nii-san’s throat and that it is, in all actuality, Haruhi-sempai herself; labouring over her homework in the warming embrace of his brother.

Akira’s face is thunderously dark for about an hour as it hovers in the doorway’s environs before it becomes painstakingly clear that there is exactly nothing to be worried about in regard to propriety, given the way Haruhi-sempai’s zest for studying does not cease even in his own presence when he gingerly takes a seat at the table whereupon Taka-nii and Haruhi-sempai have spread their course-loads.

Some time in the evening, when their fervor – especially hers – has died down and they’ve switched to revising lessons from the start of the year (he can only be certain of this if the dates on their upper corners are, indeed, accurate) he watches them actively interact for the first time that day when Taka-nii’s pencil strays from his paper to tap at something on hers.

She seems as surprised as Satoshi.

“The date?”, she asks quietly, pencil moving to replace his.

“Zita of Habsburg-Parma died in 1989.”

It’s they only thing they say for a long time and even Akira sags in his vigil.

 

**

 

After school, when Haruhi-sempai will return to their compound and spend the remains of her day glued to Taka-nii or learning – most often doing both, recently sharing an over-sized sweater (an ugly thing Satoshi thinks Taka-nii might have procured for remarkably cheap money for the only purpose of it fitting Haruhi-sempai as well as his nii-san’s large statue) – Satoshi will join them now and again. Whenever he can really. He is curious by nature and, for once, it is a curiosity that supports his grades and relieves his tou-san of his fervent sentry duty. Which is likely the reason his parents allow it.

Thus he is the main-witness when the unthinkable happens: Haruhi-sempai’s pencil moves to the revision paper of Taka-nii. Behind his book on Japanese History, Satoshi’s breath stops.

“There is something fishy with this one.”, she states quietly, carefully, aware enough of the rarity of a kouhai correcting their sempai, but she doesn’t budge and Satoshi is surprised to find his nii-san actually pondering the section over which hovers the sharp pencil of Haruhi-san.

“Ah.”, finally comes the acknowledgment and when a quiet, elderly servant takes up residence behind the nearest shoji-door in guise of being 'on call' Satoshi is not surprised, she, too, is watching the event unfold as Taka-nii reaches for his Math book, checking either the formula or the equation he had written down.

Satoshi swears the silence when his brother moves to correct his error is louder than a Haninozuka Fight.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...which is short but sweet

Takashi cannot remember a time when he had used the living room of their compound so extensively. It was usually empty except when his mother had female visitors over or his father business associates. Even then it was never for long.

It is, now, his most visited destination upon his return from Training or Club activities – be it the first Haruhi might already be occupying the table, papers spread in front of her; be it the second she would generally be likely to enter it at his side, finding her place between his legs and in the confines of their shared hoodie that he swears he never had any intention of actually procuring (he has no recollection of spending money on it but he doubts his ingrained manners and morale would allow for him to take it without reimbursement to the vendor).

There may be something to be said about the regularity of their meet-ups in the living room to crack down on their studying but his mother seems to be much in favor of his diligent work and his father has lost no word on it (as had been to be expected).

He is well aware that he finds, very quickly, stability in routine and it does not surprise him that it becomes natural and foreseeable to find himself occupied by a smaller, colder, almost quivering body. It is something he realizes some time in, when the lack of her nearness, as he attempts to study in his own room, becomes detrimental to his focus.

She has been detained by Hikaru and Kaoru for the fitting of a costume for their next event and he cannot find it in himself to move his eyes past the futon roll which she first had graced upon her entry into their compound. He is not quite certain what to feel about this development when the image of her pale shoulder insists on popping up mentally.

Meditation yields little answers.

 

\---

 

It is something of a stroke of luck that Haruhi discovers the kitchens of the Morinozuka compounds. Morinozuka-san is a most formidable woman who had insisted upon a study-break for the day which Haruhi had not exactly been able to agree on, but given the fact that the creative (and very shrewd, as she was discovering) lady of the house had hidden away her papers and books, Haruhi had had no other choice than to take the afternoon off. Which is why she is wandering the main-house as inconspicuously as possible (she’s noticed that the servants are never too far away and are not called ‘eyes and ears of the house-master’ for nothing – she doesn’t think that a single thing has passed the employees by).

When she finds the kitchens, several of them come forth, trying to inform her that dinner would be served at a later time but they could whip up something for her should she feel hungry.

“I… was actually more curious… can… could I use the kitchen?”

It is, apparently, not an unusual request to make in the house of the Morinozuka and as she starts to soothe her edgy nerves by pulling out eggs, flour and various other ingredients, she is soon joined by one of the quieter occupants of the house. Nakatani Akiko presents herself as the daughter of one of the chefs around the compound, and long-time maid to the Clan.

“Huh.”, the woman mutters when, hours later, the finished product is being glazed in front of her, “We have not been graced by a passable baker as a guest for some time.”

Haruhi is mellow with the warmth in the kitchen and has, admittedly, barely noticed the time go by. It is, too, only now that it clicks with her that Akiko-san has probably been sent to either make certain she wouldn’t cause undue trouble or clean up any mess Haruhi would leave behind. Doubtlessly, it is more of an accident that the young Commoner is going to learn something about the Morinozuka Clan.

“Yeah?”, she asks quietly, putting the red strawberry-glaze aside to reach for the paper that she carefully places underneath the elevated cake; glazing is always somewhat messy, but she feels that, without it, no cake is really finished.

Akiko dips a coquette finger into the glaze and hums her approval; Haruhi is not bothered by this – the woman has continued to sample her work throughout the entire process. It would seem that she, at the least, is quite in favor of the cake.

“Hm. The late Lady Morinozuka-obaa-sama, Takashi-sama’s grandmother, was quite gifted in the arts of bakery.”

Haruhi takes a moment to think before replying. “Would that be one of the pair to unite the Haninozuka and Morinozuka household?”, she wonders, hoping that she’d retained the information correctly. The woman nods.

“Indeed. She was of higher standing than Morinozuka-ojii-sama at the time and while, at first, neither family seemed to agree, Morinozuka-obaa-sama was… well versed in getting her way most masterfully.”

“And so she did.”, Haruhi concludes as she carefully pours the glaze, watching the red sugary concoction spread over the flat surface of her dark-bitter chocolate cake, dripping down onto the paper she’d prepared before.

“And so she did.”, Akiko agrees. “Given that she had been trained to wed an heir of higher standing, her grasp of the culinary craft was unparalleled and there had been rumors about her capabilities throughout the higher society.” Something fond flies over the face of her conversational counterpart as Haruhi glances at her, but it is gone as quickly as it had been there. “I myself had only had the pleasure of meeting her when I was still very young and she left us much too soon, but since her, no other household member has managed to quite inherit or replicate her capability.”

Haruhi doesn’t smile when she helps the glaze to spread a bit more evenly with a palette knife. To her, the finished product looks quite satisfactory and her nerves have calmed from their jittery state that doing nothing evoked in her to the pleasant hum of satisfaction for a job well done.

“My mother taught me how to bake.”, she admits when she sets the palette down and turns the cake carefully to give it a thorough inspection. “It is one of the few things I have left from her.”

Akiko doesn’t reply, but watches her carefully – Haruhi is aware that the information is being filed away in a folder that is later going to be opened for the perusal of, probably, none other than either of the family heads. She finds that she doesn’t mind. The Morinozuka are more than gracious in allowing her to remain with them while she has no other place to stay and ride out the cold and it is natural to want to know about one’s guest. Haruhi is slowly learning that only very few things about Takashi Morinozuka’s family are straight out and about.

...Except maybe Satoshi-kun and their mother. They have a curious tendency to be the most outspoken among the Clan-members.

When the cake is finished, she is content with her work, allowing herself to sit down with Akiko in quiet to dip their fingers into the slightly hardened glaze that had dropped onto the paper. Just in order to not let it go to waste, of course. Haruhi graciously files out without a word and a short bow to the young woman when the chefs make an appearance and when the family has her creation for desert, Mori’s eyes find her for a short moment of acknowledgment and she thinks that, even though no one might have said anything, he is very aware who had made it.

They like it and so, whenever Kaede-sama will hide her study materials and not unhand them even upon inquiry, Haruhi will find her way down into the kitchen where – more often than not – Akiko-san would be waiting for her. She sticks to cakes because the kitchen personnel becomes used to her sometimes soothing her nerves by baking and she really doesn’t want to step on anybody’s toes by trying herself at other dishes and preempting the work of a dutiful chef.

 

\---

 

It is obvious that he is doing better.

While Winter is not showing any signs at all of letting up its chilly grasp on the Islands, Fujioka Haruhi, the resident Commoner Scholarship Student, can be observed moving around more freely on the school campus. Naturally there have been rumors about him arriving with his upper-class-man Morinozuka Takashi, but given the fact that the tall senior still, too, arrives right on time with Haninozuka Mitsukuni most of these rumors trail off into inconsequentiality and are soon forgotten.

Ouran High School’s young ladies relish in the full attention of their Natural Host again and sigh in knowing empathy when he admits that he loves Winter – if only it weren’t for the cold. The King of the Host Club plies their favorite in a veritable flood of blankets after that statement and when Mori comes to their designation’s rescue from suffocation by thick textile, the entirety of Music Room Three revels in the Moe. The more fantastical inclined – of which there are many among the bored, female populace within these honored marble halls – slowly start to speculate that they would make a good pair… Morinozuka Takashi and Fujioka Haruhi. Of course there is Haninozuka Mitsukuni to think about, but the blond senior himself seems to smile a bit wider whenever the Natural and the Wild Type tend to linger about each other for a few more moments than maybe necessary.

Kyoya finds the rise in profits pleasing and decides to snap a few clandestine photos of the small moments shared by the two hosts. Curiously enough he finds ample opportunity to do so and wonders if, maybe, there is an event somewhere on the horizon that might impact his finances more than he’d like.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which plot happens (and a kiss!!!!)

She’d caught only the gist of the rumors about Mori-sempai and her and, according to her nature, had not given them a lot of clout. Whispers among the students had been common-place even before she’d arrived at Ouran and she has gotten used to it happening in her near vicinity within the first seven days. And so she has learned to turn a deaf ear on them – which, of course, comes back to bite her on one of the supposedly less threatening days of that winter; some time into early December.

Wind and snowfall had let up marginally two days ago and there is talk in the News about the weather maybe finally gentling down. Japan’s tourists are leaving out and the economy is suffering accordingly; especially considering the additional aid necessary to support the abrupt flood of refugees from smaller villages and mountainous towns. Haruhi doesn’t debate long on her impulse to take the short-cut through one of the many snowed-in courtyards just to get to the neighbouring building and the Host Club that she is, again, late to, instead of taking the longer, but warmer – and, in hindsight, safer – route.

A group of lower-class-men are having a snow-ball-fight of epic, if rich, dimensions and Haruhi cannot contain the smile that makes its way onto her lips as she watches them, eyes glued to their carefree motions that seem so out of place among the high and honorable facades of Ouran High School.

It had been a bad idea all in all.

The chill of the outsides sets in before she is even halfway across the courtyard and when she reaches the fountain, she has her head tucked between her shoulders, looking at the ground, focusing only on the next step. While it is true that the wind and snow have let up, the icy cold is still the same. A distracted part of her wonders if maybe her practicality is really just a suicidal stubbornness to do things her way. She counts her breaths in time with her steps when someone rams into her with all the delicacy of a truck and her eyes open too late, she gets a whiff of unfamiliar cologne and then pain sears through her.

Hot-cold, mind-numbing pain. Stopping all thought. Reducing her entire body to a shock-induced stillness. She tries to breathe. Swallows ice. In the violently attacked confines of her head her mind screams. Instincts set in. Hands whirl about her. Too much retardation in her movement for her to still be around mere _air_. She doesn't know where up or down is. Her lungs burn. She wants to cough. Wants to breathe. Can't. 

And then ground. Her feet brace and with a desperate, anguished, air-less stomp, she breaks through the cold sheet of resistance above her and takes a lung-shattering gulp of ice and copper.

There is nothing but white around her. Raw, glacial frigidity bites at her fingers, her knees, her exposed throat. It stabs at her exposed body. Her ears. She claps her hands over them and finally moves. The first step over the fountain's border exposes her completely. The water has felt warmer than the outside but she sets one foot in front of the other. Leaves the water. Curves into herself. She wants to sit down. Try to conserve warmth but something of her is aware that she is still _outside._ Warmth cannot be found here.

Her steps feel heavy. Impossible. And the door is heavy when she sags against it. But the insides are warm. Achingly _hot_  even for a moment. Her feet continue on their way without conscious thought. She’s forgotten the way to the Music Room, but her body knows.

She almost slips on marble stairs once. Manages to keep herself up by a miracle and flailing limbs. She curls back into herself once she's safe. Feels too exposed. Even here. 

Another set of doors - _salvation_ \- easier to open. Her hands refuse to properly cooperate. Unclench only reluctantly. Grip at the handle with alien appendages she doesn’t feel. She sees them but... It’s as if it weren’t her body.

There is one remedy. She knows. One place she is going to get heat and safety. Haruhi pushes through the doors even as her body starts to shake through her wet clothes. Her throat tickles insistently. She squeezes her eyes as her lungs cough up whatever it is that had been stuck in them. But she doesn't stop. She knows where to go. And just as she's breathed her first proper breath and opens her eyes, her mind sighs - _this is the place_. 

She climbs into safety, ears rushing with white-noise that is interrupted by a sharp inhale and a low, male grunt.  _Safety._

“Haruhi.”

Her body curls into a ball and closes in on the heat. It smells safe and warm through the burning scent of copper-air and slowly she realizes that the white-noise in her ears is actual screeching and murmurs from around her. She clenches her hands into fists (closing is easier than opening, though still slow going), and cowers into the source of comfort.

“Not moving.”, she gargles; eyes already closing into the embrace.

“ _Cold._ ”, the man protests. “ _ **Wet**_.”

Yes, she's noticed. That's why she's here after all. “Not moving.”, she replies. Focuses on the pin-pricks of heat surging through her body where it catches up on her surrounding warmth. She is safe here.

“Rrgh.”

 

\---

 

Mitsukuni calls the chauffeur, because the Haninozuka car is the one that has brought them to school in the first place – and because it’s obvious that he has to do something about the quivering bundle of Haruhi in his arms. Remaining in school is not going to be conductive to her health. She is soaked to the bone and Takashi can feel the chilling wetness of the water seep through his own clothing. Come evening she’s going to be feverish. He just knows it.

Around them the Host Club explodes into various states of shock; the young women of pedigree coo about the Moe as well as the state and reaction of their Natural Host, some of them squealing in chorus with Tamaki about the atrocious attack onto Haruhi, others wailing tears of sympathy. The twins and Tamaki have strategically attracted the attention, while Kyoya’s all-seeing eyes have come to the same conclusion he himself has reached.

Haruhi has certainly not jumped into a fountain of her own volition.

When Mitsukuni returns with their bags and coats, he finds Kyoya’s eyes once again, the bespectacled man understands and nods in response – Haruhi’s bag has been nowhere easily found and she would be inconsolable to find it forever gone. Kyoya can be trusted to find out both the location and state of her possessions as well as the name, face and whereabouts of the culprit. Takashi wants a quiet word with them. Later.

When he carefully slips into his coat he narrows down his most immediate concerns: her safety and well-being as well as that of Mitsukuni are priority right now.

With Haruhi in his arms, under his coat, and Mitsukuni on his shoulders, he bows briefly to the ladies they are leaving – Mitsukuni is making exaggerated excuses that melt the heart of every single one of them and he praises the day he’s decided to let Mitsukuni to do all the talking in the Host Club.

They ride an emergency-elevator down to the garage where the Haninozuka vehicle awaits them and his cousin is as gleefully threatening as always when the chauffeur has the gall to ask about their third guest – and his state – assuring that their consequent ride to the Morinozuka compound is uninterrupted and that much quicker.

“You go take care of Haru-chan.”, is all Hani says when they enter the main-house the driver has automatically halted in front of. He can tell by the accompanying shove against his side that he wants this order to be heeded presently.

Takashi nods and takes off into the direction he’s been pushed into: his room. Mitsukuni can be trusted to inform his parents about Haruhi’s unsolicited swim. She shivers against him and reflexively he tightens his arms around her as a servant opens the door leading to the family’s private quarters, bowing once.

He returns the gesture sloppily while trying to simultaneously take off his shoes and open his coat – the action requires his concentration and year-long-training in a way he hadn’t foreseen.

The servant, he knows her, she’s a chef’s daughter, looks at him curiously, before the wet mop of Haruhi’s hair emerges from below the zipper. Her lips are still tinted a worrying shade of blue and her eyes are closed.

“Dry clothes.”, he lets the woman know as he finally steps out of his shoes. Leaving the coat behind, he makes a bee-line for the master-bathroom and consciously leaves the door open. But when she cannot seem to let go of his blazer, he joins Haruhi in the lukewarm spray of the shower – regardless of their uniforms.

 

* * *

 

Akiko doesn’t know how it comes that the bubbly young woman, who has been living with them for several weeks now, would cling to the young Master Takashi in her current state. But one quick look reveals she’s soaked even before the young Master steps into the bathtub with her, her skin blotchy and mottled red-white-and-blues where her body tries to warm up.

It’s all she needs to see.

 

**

 

The circumstances of Haruhi Fujioka’s entrance into the compound have long but made their rounds and while the servants' grapevine had been abuzz about Master Takashi’s closed doors in combination with the presence of a young woman, they had quickly realized, once the doors opened, that the Master had held up the honor of the Morinozuka name with his usual aplomb. The Clan could be proud to have an heir such as Takashi Morinozuka.

And when Akira Morinozuka-sama had asked her to get closer to the young woman and find out if, possibly, there might be secondary plans to her suspicious physical closeness towards his eldest, she had bowed and gone to do so. Because the man had been of the opinion that the young commoner woman might just sooner open up about her life to Akiko rather than anyone else.

The entirety of the Clan is aware just how patient and gracious Master Takashi can be – sometimes to a fault that would see him robbed in one way or another. Given that not merely the male head of the family would like to see this avoided, Akiko had eased herself down in the kitchens when the commoner had first discovered them. And every consequent time as well.

What she had come to learn, however, begrudgingly endeared the young woman to her.

If her employment to one of the most stoic clans in Japan had born any fruit at all then the female had not been aware of Akiko’s initial wariness of her – aside from maybe neutrality she trusts that nothing else had shown in her behavior. Given how the brunette had indeed opened up about her private life and her late mother, she thinks she might have been successful. She knows she has been when Haruhi Fujioka has less compunctions about addressing her the next few times.

Akiko learns, stores away and reports.

Haruhi Fujioka doesn’t much care if she confuses people, so long as they can agree that she is a hard worker. She has grown up as the only child of a lawyer and a bar-maid and Akiko remembers her surprise that must have shown on her face when their guest had gently corrected her on the assumption that her father had been the lawyer. Kotoko Katayama is not a name she, personally, is familiar with but she believes it to have proven a good piece of information to be able to pass on. Moreso, however, Akiko realizes with every afternoon spent in the kitchen and in the presence of the commoner woman that there are no secondary designs.

Fujioka enjoys Master Takashi’s presence, this much is obvious – if not to either of them then to the people observing them – but she would never consider scheming her way into his good graces and most certainly not with something as far-fetched as orchestrating an ancient boiler and deathly cold apartments.

There are, most certainly, people who would go such lengths to reach a goal. Akiko has seen them underneath this roof just as well. Haruhi Fujioka is not among them.

And so, when she first catches sight of the female in Master Takashi’s arms, she takes up vigil over the pair without much thought; especially when the young Master leaves the door open (you could say what you wanted about his verbosity, but the young Master is a quick learner).

 

**

 

It takes them time.

At first, there is not a single sound aside from the soft hiss of the shower and the occasional squeak of sopping textile against porcelain as Master Takashi takes off his own shoes and then those of the young woman, dropping them right next to the bathing tub with a loud, smacking echo.

The two of them are still in full uniform and Akiko is privately going over the measurements of the young woman to make certain she may have a fitting replacement come the next day. It is unthinkable she run around at school in the worn-out, if high-quality, woolen-pullovers she has shown a strong preference for. That is, if she might even be in the constitution to go back to school tomorrow.

Ten minutes pass in relative silence, before Master Takashi reaches for the taps again and the short inhale from his arms lets them know that the spray he’s conjured is a tad too hot yet. He adjusts quietly.

They sit, water slowly warming, thawing the slowly relaxing young woman atop the Morionzuka heir. Master Takashi makes no move to separate himself from her and Akiko… cannot help but wonder if maybe the young Master has caught on to his feelings towards the young woman.

He would keep his own counsel if he had, naturally, but more often than not he is also quicker in regard to the workings of his inner world than others, given his innate talent for reflection. A younger maid leaves dry clothes next to her and Akiko nods at her to retreat. She places the clothes over the threshold to the room occupied by the two students before she moves away just as the young Master’s movements herald his extraction from the situation.

 

* * *

 

He has returned to a situation that is curiously familiar to him in a way he is still uncertain about.

Haruhi has been awake and warm enough after the shower to mostly dry and change herself although he had taken the liberty of motioning for one of their servants to help her should the need arise as he had left to make himself presentable. Once this had been accomplished, he’d went back into the bathroom, picked up her still shivering form and taken her to his room. To the very futon she’d first graced. Bundled into the very blanket he’d first rolled her into. Her eyes had already been falling shut by then, body going limp as if in a Pavlovian response when he had placed himself behind her, pulling her into his embrace and placing another blanket on top of them. Her breath had been even before he’d fully settled himself.

And now her nape is flirting with him.

Recently he has started to notice that nearly everything about her has been put into just the right light to be enticing to him. Not consciously, he thinks. Because Haruhi is certainly not aware how wondrously small and delicate her hands are in comparison to his when they work side by side on their homework and their revisions. Or how soft and bright and touchable her hair looks next to his brother’s coarse, dark spike. Even he doesn't quite know why he would enjoy the contrast of the gentleness and innocence of her gait as she walks through a compound full of trained fighters and protectors. She cannot know that the way to placate his father, and grandfather, is through food – and desert at that. That her sheer determination to be on top of her class and remain in Ouran to follow into the footsteps of her maternal ancestor endears her to his mother. And it would surprise him if she were to know that by making his family content, she is worming her way into his psyche… and deeper than that.

Mitsukuni, for his part, has always liked her; from the moment she’d been unable to deny Usa-chan. And he would be remiss in his duty of observation if he had not noticed that his cousin has recently developed a tendency for being late for pick-up, or drop-off to and from school; that he’s been going out of his way to get _lost_ on a compound he has known before even Takashi himself, ever since Haruhi has been here. It should be a nuisance but…

She turns in her slumber, heat emanating from her body as she curls deeper into the circle of his arms and his warmth; his stomach feels like a swimming pool.

It should be a nuisance but Takashi has not been able to feel anything but grateful for his cousin, whose antics allow him unsupervised time with the young commoner. A woman who is quickly becoming proficient at reading him, deciphering his quiet. He remembers fondly the morning when she had poured him a second cup of coffee without prompting because somehow she had realized he had been more tired than usual – while studying for a test the night before he had stayed up longer than maybe necessary. It had been a small thing, certainly, but his mother had caught his eyes over the rim of her own cup when he’d gratefully smiled at his brunette friend and patted her head in thanks as he downed his second coffee.

His mother had noticed then. When he himself hadn’t yet been ready to see, she had become aware that he could potentially develop feelings for a young woman who had entered his life earlier this year, turned the Host Club upside down with her promptness and brutal honesty and somehow managed to wrap the heirs to the most prestigious families around her little finger without an effort to it. He knows that they are all partial to her. And he had always known that, given the chance, his feelings for her would grow. He just never assumed that there would, indeed, be an actual chance for it to happen.

As he leans closer to her, curving his long body around her, pressing careful lips to her warm forehead, just where her smooth skin sprouts the first, soft hair of her locks, he muses that, really, he should not be surprised. Were any of the others in his position, he does not think they would be faring any better than he currently is.

Her hair smells faintly of the strawberry-shampoo she’d bought a few days ago during a quick outing between Mitsukuni, her and him to the commoner’s supermarket and he smiles softly, closing his eyes. Despite the open door he does not see his father.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (got you with the kiss didn't I)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which there is cloying sweetness (yes, yes it's short)

She doesn’t quite know how they get away with it. During the host hours, they are rather well-behaved all in all though so maybe that’s it.

However, Mori-sempai seems to have given up on the proper school etiquette concerning personal relationships – she thinks that’s what would possibly cover the regulated bodily distance from one student to another were it any other school than Ouran. These days, when he finds her learning in the far corners of the library, away from prying eyes, he doesn’t even attempt to sit down at another table or even chair rather than make short work of her seated position and arrange them in a similar manner to when they are learning at the compound: Haruhi in his lap and partially hidden by the open lapels of his blazer with him curved around her.

It _is_ warmer this way. The drafts of the window she is certain she feels at odd intervals cease to shake her frame and given how often they have been studying in this way for the last few weeks, she has the sneaking suspicion that the ways of the damn rich kids have rubbed off on her and made this a new normal that she wouldn’t be able to perform effectively without any more.

Which is why, in return (and maybe even a smidge revenge), Haruhi copies his strategies.

She is well aware of what she’s doing the first time she stalks into the seniors’ learning hall, still shivering from when one of her teachers had demanded the windows be opened for the duration of an entire class to let the stuffy air out and refresh them. Due to her seating and proclivity towards feeling cold even without extrinsic influences, she has yet to recover.

So here she is, promptly making a rather loud entrance into the quiet room and for a second she fears that she might not find him before his tall stature saves her from embarrassment and consequent the bee-line she makes for him lets him become aware of her presence early enough to probably guess her intent.

Halfway across the room, she fleetingly fears that maybe this is overstepping their boundaries, even as she continues to move forward. That maybe he had merely been doing this to ease her commoner anxieties about seeking warmth through physical proximity. That it had been something meant to be kept within the confines of privacy. That he would be ashamed of it now.

But she is already at his table then, giving him an unseeing stare and even before she has lowered her backpack or found her way back into conscious throught, he has unbuttoned his blazer and moved his chair just _so_.

She sinks into the confines of his blazer and he moves her backpack within reaching distance of her. The commotion around them doesn’t register when she greets Hani seated just opposite of them and plucks her Maths-homework to work on first.

 

**

 

Thus their nearness continues.

Haruhi cannot deny that at times her heart beats just this bit fiercer when she climbs into Mori-sempai’s embrace after a long day of learning to relax with a book while he would fiddle with his miniatures or take time for Piyo and Choji.

Their learning habits have made the rounds of the compound and Akira-sama’s presence at the open shoji-doors has become rare and in-between, whereas Satoshi-kun’s at their table in the living room has become a staple. She revels not only in the warmth of Mori-sempai’s body around her but also in the quiet companionship of his cousin and his brother with only the tea pot between them.

His hand lingers sometimes – she thinks – when he pets her on the head, stroking instead of patting, sifting his fingers carefully through her hair, tousling them before retreating. Once he’d softly pinched her ear for a piece of cheeky advice to Tamaki on Hani’s behalf that, if she has interpreted the motion correctly, he had approved of but seemed to feel the need to maybe reprimand just a tiny bit.

And she knows she shouldn’t – she knows that their closeness is a product of nothing else but circumstance – but she cannot help but look forward towards the times she will be able to push up against him, bask in his strength against her back and his warm scent around her.

She finds herself liking his perfume and the soft scratch of the fuzz that sometimes appears around his mouth and chin on weekends when he leans forward from behind her to study his notes with more intent. She enjoys how he looks on those unshaven Sundays: tired and unbothered to hide it in the safety of his home, bent over a large cup of tea, glasses high on his nose. Even then he will pull a woolen blanket around her shoulders when he passes her by, patting her before he sits down at the breakfast table with less grace than usual. Haruhi, Satoshi and Hani have taken to call Sunday his ‘Day Off’. They’re not certain if the tall Morinozuka has yet caught on to their small joke.

When they learn, she takes her moments of pause and reprieve to study the neatness of his writing and realizes at some point that there is a difference between the notes he has needed to re-write because of his waning attention in class, and those that he learns from as they are. In the latter, his words slope to the left minutely, but smudge towards the right. In the former, his letters would be perfectly straight and so properly written they could be printed. She doesn’t quite know what to do with this discovery, but she kind of enjoys guessing whether his notes are rewritten or not.

And then there are the evenings when he has had a trying day and his tongue would loosen as he would make ready for retreating behind the privacy of his room’s doors.

“The blazer was an ill-fit.”, he admits to her on one such evening as he picks the garment up from the floor where he’s dropped it a moment ago and carefully hangs it up around his chair. “Too large for me.”, and he sends her a look she cannot quite decipher; then: “But it fits perfectly for the two of us.”

Usually she excuses herself from his presence rather quickly in those moments. Not because he spooks her but…

“Mori-sempai is a private man.”, she confides in Hani one afternoon when the young man joins her in the kitchen instead of Akiko. “Being close to him when he is in a state of… being-not-entirely-him feels like exploiting a weakness.”

Hani-sempai looks pensive. “Ne, Haru-chan, Takashi hasn’t flirted with you again when he was sleepy?”

She thinks about it briefly, but shakes her head. “Mostly he just… _talks_. Training, Satoshi, you and Yasuchika, scratchy cats, Piyo… but he hasn’t… made advances while tired.”

Bending over her dough she misses the light flashing in her upper-class-man’s eyes.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...which is long, and has a lot happening!!! (honest!)

He has had time to observe Haruhi Fujioka. Just two days ago he had listened to her talk to her father over the phone as the man excused himself for not being able to return to the country come Christmas or even New Years – the young woman had borne it with quiet acceptance and self-sufficient indifference that the combatant in him could not help but approve of.

“It’s quite alright, ‘tou-san. I’m perfectly fine.”, she’d placated the voice at the other end of the line repeatedly. “You are eating well enough? You will not be alone on Christmas?”

He has come to appreciate her baking and her studious nature that has managed to include both his sons, as well as one of his nephews. He has listened in on her conversations around the compound and he has had his most trusted servants report to him about what they have learned about the young commoner.

Recently he has been watching his eldest son with a bit more scrutiny whenever he would be in the near vicinity of the young woman. Given what he has learned, he is not as surprised as maybe he should have been when he watches his son make a quiet, unsuspecting, overture to the young woman the day his oldest nephew arrives at the main compound with the news that Fujioka has somehow managed fall into a fountain – in this weather.

Akira prides himself in knowing his sons; he has taken the time to be present for their rearing and as thus considers himself well aware of just how cautious Takashi could be. Despite his soft open-ness of heart.

Which is why he thinks he knows well what to prepare for when his eldest presses a soft kiss to the forehead of their guest, before he curls around the woman, with a tenderness that makes even his old cheeks warm from where he observes in front of the shoji-doors. It is then that he decides to not leave the two unsupervised again (it’s a well-kept secret but Morinozuka blood tends to run hot; Takashi has never been seen fond of anyone outside of family before and Akira does not want to tempt fate unnecessarily).

For several days he puzzles over what to do with the new development. Sitting at his table he alternates between studying the proposals he’s had originally accepted to keep safe for Takashi and losing his gaze in the snowed-in zen-garden. He burns the midnight oil in this deep contemplation over the future of his clan and his sons and when he is done, he prays in thankfulness for his wife, who has tolerated his reclusive-meditative behavior with the quiet understanding that only the much quicker mind of women could bring forth.

 

**

 

“You have concrete reason to believe they are coming along well-enough, then?”, she asks on the fourth day when he leaves his doors open and she heeds his quiet invitation for a game of shogun, and a pot of tea he’s already prepared. They are both aware of just how much better than him she is at this particular game. 

Bless his wife she is well attuned in to his ways of apology by now.

“Ah.”, he concedes, watching her make the first move. “Not allowing them to close the doors any time soon.”

Kaede snorts elegantly and amused, but he gives her a look that lets her know just how serious he is with that statement – delicate wonder blooms on her face. “Ah?”

“Mh.”, he responds to her move as he nods. “He’s getting over himself slowly but if he’s anything like me...”

She hums in realization. “Take forever to realize it and then go all in?”

It’s the way he’s been with her, he knows she means nothing bad by her teasing. There is a reason she is married to him even after all these years; she has never complained about either of those characteristics about him.

He nods again and this time she echoes his motion, placing another stone. “Then maybe we should let your father know.”

“Ah.” He hadn’t quite thought about that yet.

She trumps him a few hours later, but as he bends to press a warm kiss to the back of her hand over the table, she admits that at the very least he’s made a good show of it. “And we both know that there is a plethora of strategy games you would trounce me in, within the blink of an eye.”

He is truly blessed with such a remarkable woman at his side.

 

**

 

His wife hides the young woman’s books and notes the next afternoon and he takes the chance to clear the kitchen of any personnel with his mere presence, before sitting down in waiting.

Haruhi Fujioka does not disappoint: half and hour later, she enters through the side doors, wrapped in a woolen pullover that compliments her pale features. She smiles softly when she spots him and bows politely.

“Morinozuka-sama.”, she greets, giving the kitchen a cursory glance.

“Fujioka-kun.”, he nods back. “Would you be amenable to a cup of tea?”

She is. More than that, she is amenable to preparing the tea and Akira gets to experience a side of her he is not certain the household has yet seen of her – because he doesn’t doubt that her ability for smooth talk while preparing kukicha is something born out of her membership in the Host Club.

For now, he is content to watch her whisk the tea in precise flicks that speak of his son’s tutelage – she has adopted the same wrist-movement his eldest has been taught by his grand-mother. His father will be pleased to notice when the time comes.

 

* * *

 

She makes her move when she finds her husband relocating the proposals for their eldest into the lowest drawer of his office bureau the next day. She knows and loves her husband and if there is something that he has mastered throughout the years, then it is finding a way to communicate with her that doesn't necessitate him talking too much yet still enough for her to still understand.

Originally the Morinozuka had found it hard to communicate for lengthy periods of time due to a training accident in his youth that left his voice box impaired – to this day long talks would leave him coughing uncomfortably and his voice rasping more than it did usually. When he’d made the effort to verbally communicate with her in spite of his hurdle, she’d known that she would do well to marry this one.

She has not looked back.

And now it is time to make certain that her eldest, too, might have the chance at never looking back. Given how quickly her own husband had moved once he’d gotten over himself, she thinks that there may not be a lot of time before her son would make his suit known – thus it is up to her to be quicker than him in deciding whether to approve his choice. It is not a necessity; but she likes it better this way.

Akira’s chosen task had been to see how well she would do socially – mostly in regard to his father, given that old Morinozuka-jii is still Head of House, no matter how rarely he truly is around.  Their head of house had chosen to travel the world and instruct young students all over the globe in the art of Kendo ever since Akira and his brother had taken over the dōjō in Japan. It would seem the young woman has passed.

Her own test will be slightly different in nature. Because there is something of a secret among the Morinozuka males that would threaten to undo their painstakingly assembled image of the hardened combattant.

She herself had nearly toppled over with lack of air when she’d tried to hold back her laughter at her husband’s hesitant admittance to what she’d thought would be something so much more severe when he’d started to come home late at some point in their earlier years.

It had turned out that Rune had held an exhibition that her husband had been unable to not relish in; choosing to do so after working hours when the museum would be mostly empty of people who could possibly recognize him. Because the appreciation of art – and aesthetic in general – is a sensitive topic to the Morinozuka lineage. Akira had explained it to her as something worthy of being inspected from another viewpoint than that which the observer would habitually take. In essence, art invited the onlooker to drop their usual comportment which, in the case of a Morinozuka, would leave them uncharacteristically vulnerable - relieved, by their own design and volition, of their usual bellicose mindset. 

She knows her sons have been raised to inherit this understanding. She hadn’t stopped Akira when he had sat them down to teach them the appreciation of art aside from the kind which could be made with their bodies and weapons.

As such, her duty is clear. Art is an integral part of the Morinozuka – to not have it appreciated by a person close to them might hurt more than necessary. She wants to prevent this.

Incidentally this is where Haruhi Fujioka unwittingly, and metaphorically, stumbles.

 

**

 

“Haru-chan is too-- practical for art.”, Mitsukuni laments, when Kaede comes to him. He pulls a chagrined mine. “Do _not_ tell oji-chan, but the reason she’s considered indebted to the Host Club is because she shattered a vase by Rune.”

She swallows and despairs; Akira would be despondent. “But surely there must be _something_ \--”, she tries. Mitsukuni looks pensive.

So far Haruhi has proven to be nothing but sensible, grounded, well-mannered, and astoundingly versed in meeting the demands of the higher society she has been thrust into without instructions on behavior. In short: generally well-rounded. Then again everyone must have a fault. Haruhi Fujioka’s seems to be art.

“I will see what can be done at the Club.”, he finally decides, “It should be possible to be as covert as needed there and we can see what would incite her interest.”

Kaede nods in thanks and leaves the matter in her nephew’s capable hands with a fluttering heart.

 

* * *

 

It is not quite as easy as he would have thought – mostly because Kyoya cannot be convinced that a week of art and culture could be profitable for the club. He admits the plan had been semi-solid at best and even the simplest questions from his kouhai had stumped him. Which means he has to go about this another way. Asking Tamaki for help is out of the question; as much as he is amused by the carefree attitude of the other blond, it is not conductive to the kind of relaxed environment Takashi needs to be able to _fall_ into an art-piece.

He’s seen his cousin do it too: achieve the trance-like state of meditation with his eyes wide-open, drinking in the shapes and angles of a painting, a sculpture, even a ballet once. As with many things the Morinozuka do, he is absolute in this. When he loses himself in art, he falls completely, leaving nothing behind of himself to guard him.

Their teachers had been surprised in their first years and once Takashi had fallen so deeply that, for an afternoon, he had worked on clay without emerging from his trance. These days his cousin is more contained, more controlled, lest he fall into art for a whole afternoon again, but he knows the possibility is always there. If only the temptation is big enough.

And that is the trick, isn’t it? He needs to find out Haruhi’s deal with art without leaving his cousin unnecessarily exposed. The Host Club won’t do it – and school is too exposed. Hani makes another plan.

 

**

 

“Haru-chan… what do you think of this?”

She stops in her stride, taking in the large, bright advertisement for an exhibition on Tizian – the ad runs through a careful assortment of the choicest paintings before it announces the duration of the exhibition. The young woman shrugs.

“It looks nice.” She turns towards him, a curious mien on her face. “Do you like art exhibitions, Hani-sempai?”

He swallows and prays that his cousin is still busy with the self-check-out. “I was wondering-- Hika-chan and Kao-chan have been making remarks about your sense of aesthetic, Haru-chan.” Not entirely a lie but not exactly true either; good enough of a means to an end.

Haruhi sighs a bit defeated, looking back at the ad. “It’s not-- well--”, she takes another deep breath. “I’ve been reading up on-- you know-- the differences between people from higher classes and lower classes. Because-- You know personally I don’t much see it – the difference I mean. But given your constant reactions to the things I haven’t experienced-- I thought it would be worth a shot--”

Huh. That is new. Haruhi Fujioka opening up about insight. He had not actually considered her researching these sorts of things. “So you read up on it?”

“Mmh.”, she nods her mono-syllabic answer in such a dry fashion that she reminds him of Takashi for a moment; she is even wearing his cousin’s blazer from when he had slung it over her shoulders in one of the aisles because the tall Morinozuka had had enough of her deep breathing to stave off the shivers. Haruhi had not complained.

“There was a man from France who thought that-- well-- taste is something that is influenced by our upbringing and our monetary standing. See, he thought that if you had the means to regularly visit museums, your sense of the aesthetic would develop accordingly. People would start to see the beauty even in abstract art. Whereas people who did not have the means-- they would remain-- stuck, is perhaps a good word, with what they thought was aesthetically pleasing, solid forms, solid shapes, harmonizing choices of color. In a sense: the simpler side of art.”

He turns the thoughts over in his mind for a few breaths during which Takashi joins them, arms laden with the purchases the three of them have made – or rather, that he has made in order to stall Takashi for as long as possible. The difficulty with the kind of man his cousin is, is that Takashi tends to strive for excellence in his every waking moment. No matter how far out of reach it really is.

Except for his ‘Days Off’ during which he allows himself twenty-four hours of reprieve from all social and societal expectations… as well as his upbringing. It is a recent habit of his that had, at first, startled his parents until they had come to accept it as yet another quiddity of their son.

With Haruhi walking in their midst and Takashi notoriously quiet, he has a few additional minutes to muse over what his friend had told him. Finally, he pulls at her hand carefully, garnering her attention.

“So do you think-- Do you think that you’re-- that you belong to the second category?”

His wording is ominous because of Takashi’s presence and he hopes that Haruhi can follow his meaning, but then the female has always had the uncanny ability to read between the lines and when she shrugs, he breathes a bit easier.

“In a way, yes.”, she says quietly, taking in the glaring lights of the mall. “I mean, it is obvious in much of my disinterest because – in many things I do not see the same details and emotions you guys easily detect, but--”

She stutters in her speech, and her entire demeanor changes, her walls fall and she stills suddenly in her steps, eyes fixated at something far beyond them and when Hani looks, he fails to see the importance of the paintet, far off wall. It is likely she sees something he doesn’t, given her far-sight. Haruhi swallows, blinks, and continues on with them as if nothing has happened. Hani wants to ask, but doesn’t dare to – Takashi has grown suspicious enough as it is; neither he nor Haruhi are wont to keep secrets from him and their conversation must sound nothing short of enigmatic to him. And he loathes to keep anything from Takashi but this time around it’s _important_.

He shakes his head at Kaede when they return to the compound and when Haruhi locks herself into the kitchen, he follows and allows himself to be plied with cake. Takashi is glued to his side, still suspicious, and he doesn’t get a second chance to ask.

Not for a week.

 

**

 

Benibara steals Haruhi out of class in a heretofore unprecedented act of insolence and takes her to Lobelia’s for whatever harebrained scheme the Zuka Club has conjured this time.

The weather is in their favor too, because when the twins finally get to the rest of the Host Club, the heavens have opened up and forth spill the masses of snow that have not been around to flutter to the ground for two weeks. The Host Club, luckily, is insane enough to not be detained by such a thing and makes to rescue their princess nevertheless.

Takashi at the head of the single-file snow-march sets a grueling pace that makes him glad his cousin is carrying him instead of making him walk behind him. If nothing else then the reaction is telling as to the state of his heart concerning their female host. Were the others not at least as worried as Takashi is, it would certainly have been obvious to the rest of the Host Club as well.

As it is, only Kyoya’s eyes shine with yet another puzzle-piece added to whatever image it is he is constructing in his mind when they briefly make halt in the shelter of a bus-stop. He might not yet have caught on to the full extent of it, but he has certainly managed to realize that Takashi's behavior spoke of more than mere friendly _like_  for their commoner friend. Mitsukuni, taking advantage of his seat atop Takashi's shoulders, drops his Honey-facade when he registers the light of understanding and glares at the lower-class-man just long enough to prevent him from saying even a thing. Kyoya's survival instinct keeps him quiet.

It is only when they find the large ballroom of the all girls' school, their gear dropped at the doors, that Takashi finally slows down to a manageable tempo. Right in the back of the atrium sits Haruhi, shivering and curled into a ball, but attentively looking towards the stage, where the members of the Zuka Club prattle into a microphone. Mitsukuni doesn’t mind being set down at this point. The wind still sings in his ears from the swift pace of the journey his cousin has put them through, but when Haruhi notices him next to her, she smiles softly, looking up to find Takashi’s eyes.

He is glad to notice the smile of relief on her face.

Benibara dramatically sighs into the microphone: “Awed by her splendor, stars near the lovely moon, cover their own bright face, when she is roundest, and lights earth with her silver.”

Haruhi’s breath hums out of her in a tune that is definitely appreciative - of the lines or of Takashi's heat curling around her, Mitsukuni is not certain - before Tamaki’s shrill exclamation about the lacking honor and morale of the Zuka Club interrupts the quiet get-together of the women.  He unleashes chaos. The most prominent members of the all-girl’s club have, of course, come fully prepared to steal Haruhi away from the Host Club and, more shockingly, Ouran all-together.

At the end of the day though it is all for naught. Lobelia's ground-keepers break them up over the weather and even though Benio Benibara swears on a continuation of the Feud over Haruhi along to Tamaki’s enraged agreements, the young must depart lest they be unable to get home at all. The state has issued an immediate order to return home and remain there – Kyoya quietly assumes a state wide alert for a Blizzard will not be far behind. He will not be wrong.

In the confines of the Haninozuka snow vehicle, best-suited for ascertaining the unharmed return of the entirety of the Host Club to their respective compounds, he takes the chance to find answers. Haruhi had not seemed particularly concerned about her capture and Tamaki’s dramatic inquisitions earlier had fallen on deaf ears with the young woman.

“Ne, Haru-chan, what was going on at Lobelia’s? You were… calm.”

A quiet, serene, smile settles over her face as she turns towards him from where she is perched on his cousin’s lap; Takashi has not once allowed her to leave the circle of his arms and his warmth – judged by the receding bout of shivers, Haruhi is appreciative of the gesture.

“They had a poetry evening.”, she says softly. “Mostly Sappho and Feminist Writings, quite empowering. But they also read others. It was lovely.”

 

* * *

 

Kaede watches her nephew when he, triumphantly, struts into the living-room with an assortment of books in his small hands. He sits them down next to Haruhi who has been drowned in blankets by her eldest son before he’d made off to shower. She follows through the doors at a more leisurely pace, smiling at the wondrous look of appreciation on Haruhi’s face as she fingers the covers of the books.

“Ne, Haru-chan-- So the French man-- he wasn’t all-inclusive with his theory on art?”, her nephew asks and she has no idea what he is talking about, but judged by the amused look the woman sends him, she does.

“He actually was but-- I think this here are exceptions to most cases too.”

“But then he was wrong.”, her nephew petulantly whines, crossing his arms in front of his chest and Haruhi sets down one book she has been inspecting more closely, shaking her head as she draws him into her heap of blankets.

“From a general perspective, he was right. There might always be exceptions to the rule. But that does not mean that the larger picture has a fault.”

“Mouh.”

 

**

 

Haruhi changes when she first opens the book to Emmerson’s collected works once Mitsukuni has fallen asleep in the cocoon of warmth around them. Her shoulders lower and her face becomes open, unguarded; always properly closed knees fall apart under her covers when she leans back against the wall to devour the letters on the pages and after reading at surprising speed through an assortment of poems there comes a page that she _stops_ at.

And Kaede watches as her eyes glaze over, losing themselves not just in the page but in the meaning behind the page, in the mind- and landscape behind the words on the page and when Takashi enters to pluck Haruhi from the table, and carry her wherever, he stills with just one look at her.

Even she can tell that Haruhi is not here anymore. Her physical vessel might be seated in this room but her mind has been captured by the lines on the page before her and has been transported elsewhere – she has seen this in Akira, in Takashi, in Satoshi. She has been told she too can on occasion reach such a state herself.

Takashi stands and observes.  
He drinks her in – the slackness of her muscles, the delicate hold she has on the borrowed book and as a mother she knows; she knows that she has done her part.

Haruhi Fujioka might struggle with some aspects of art as the most part of the higher class might understand it.

But the young commoner woman isjust as guilty of falling into it when it is poetry.

 

**

 

“Read to me.”, she hears later when she has vacated the room in favor of seeing off Kiku Haninozuka who had come for tea and Mitsukuni. She has just been about to return to her vigil of her son and his potential something-more. The request is voiced in a quiet, earnest tone and she sinks to her knees as clandestinely as she can in the hallway, not daring to peek into the room that she knows holds only two people now: her son and the young woman.

Sheets rustle and a waft of tea hits her nose as porcelain clinks quietly; then more rustling; then paper. Then quiet breathing.

Kaede risks a quick glance.

Takashi’s eyes are closed, his head tilted back, resting against the wooden paneling of the wall, Haruhi Fujioka in his lap, surrounded by a thick, large blanket. The emanating warmth from the central heating next to them smears the picture of the outside’s heavy snow-fall blanketing and whitening out the country.

“A free bird leaps, on the back of the wind, and floats downstream, till the current ends and dips his wing, in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky.”, Haruhi opens her reading and even Kaede finds herself falling victim to the soothing lilt of her pronunciation.

Later she wakes briefly in the swaying embrace of her husband and his quiet continuation of the poem he carries her away from.

“Here is the deepest secret nobody knows, here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide.”, she sighs into the grating rasp of his bass that vibrates against her very being. “And this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart. I carry your heart; I carry it in my heart.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look up Bourdieu (he will twist your head around faster than it can spin), look up Sappho (she will put it back on, no prob), look up Angelou, look up Emmerson... matter of fact _look up POETRY_ learn poetry, read poetry, BE poetry...


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which there are blizzards... and The Conglomerate of the White Duvet Mountain  
> ...which is short though

Japan is in a state of emergency as of the next morrow. According to state-wide news it might hold for a few days: overnight the heavy snowfall that had set in just yesterday afternoon had developed into a full-blown Blizzard of record dimensions.

“ _Citizens are advised to remain inside. The government has issued a nation-wide emergency. Please sit tight and remain calm.”_

Akira sighs somewhat displeased as he lowers the volume of the radio again, giving the dining room a cursory glance – he is, of course, rather pleased to have his family around him, and to have delivered his sons from being woken too early lest they find themselves en route to school for naught. Especially Takashi had, yesterday, been quite content to remain in a semblance of wakefulness for as long as possible, pushing tome after tome at the younger woman, who, he had been pleased to notice, had not ceased her reading until her eyes had drooped and fatigue had finally set in.

Yorihisa had made for the Morinozuka compound with his wife and children in the middle of the night, an occurrence Akira had expected and prepared for – ushering the frozen group of travelers into their warmed rooms. It is a long-standing agreement between the two men that, in moments of distress – no matter the nature – the families would congregate in one place, thusly more resistant to whatever could come at them.

His friend had even thought to bring provisions with him. While the path between the compounds certainly is not far, considering the icy onslaught he himself had suffered when he’d greeted the small group, he does not doubt that the additional weight must have felt like a ton. He is grateful for the forethought this morning.

The electricity-network of their district had died around dawn, prompting the Morinozuka compound to fall back onto the Reserve they shared with the Haninozuka – it would last them a month even if used at full capacity.

Yorihisa is holding vigil over their families with him and Akira has long since found that whatever the task, he has always deemed it easier if shared with his good friend.

Today, their children are not spared the chill of the hallways; both Satoshi as well as Yasuchika have already found their way into the dining room, feet clad in heavy-duty woolen socks, hair tousled, ready to receive their morning-cocoa with appreciative, if sleepy, smiles. It’s  _Chococchino_ for Yasuchika who is unwilling to even potentially succumb to the lure of sweetness as his brother has, but who has equally been judged still too young for straight-out coffee at this point.

Mitsukuni enters the dining room at his mother’s side a few minutes later, having given up his own blanket for her comfort. Yasuchika’s eyes narrow momentarily, but he does not move to attack his older brother. For now – and however long it will hold – Akira relaxes in thanks; he does not need the two Haninozuka heirs fighting under his roof so long as they are not in a training room. He only has one in the main building and the dining room is _not it._

Morning passes slowly with one more warning from the national radio that the Blizzard has intensified to the point where most government-issued emergency troops have been called back; Akira had excused himself to make certain that his own men – embroiled in various rescuing ops in the mountains – were still ready to do what they’d set out to. He has learned, in his years, that men who waver in their will to do their duties with a full-heart ended up in a grave sooner than they thought they would and he would rather not force his people into one.

Three had opted out; the rest had kept going.

 

**

 

It is ten when loud rustling can be heard from the hall-way and Kaede, next to him, looks up from her crocheting to give the door a curious and amused glance – busy with the game he had started with Yorihisa, it takes him a bit by surprise when the door to the dining room opens to reveal the last stragglers--

A mountain of blankets.

“Close the door.”, Satoshi protests from a corner on the couch where he has been trying to meld with the central heating as inconspicuously as possible while looking unaffected by the chill at the same time. He had almost been successful.

A hand shoots out of the blanket, large, male – definitely his son’s – closing the door behind the Heap of Blanket, before the black mop of Takashi’s matted hair emerges from the upper end of the White Duvet Mountain. Haruhi Fujioka’s silky brown mop emerges a bit lower.

“Good morning.”, she greets quietly, indicating a bow even through her teeth chattering involuntarily against each other in a manner that worries Akira instantly and even Yorihisa looks up from the game with a concerned look. “Please pardon our state of dress.”

He is about to get really worried, when Mitsukuni, never one for controlling his impulses, closes in on the White Duvet Mountain and Takashi opens up the side without hesitance – Akira is relieved to see that both children are fully dressed. Fujioka is even wearing one of her atrociously colored woolen pullovers. Kami but the girl must be freezing indeed.

Takashi closes the blanket after his cousin and White Duvet Mountain develops a small lump that moves around somewhat suspiciously before Mitsukuni’s head re-appears on top of Takashi’s with a content smile spreading on the face of the young blond.

“So warm.”, he sighs and Akira thinks that if his nephew could, he would liquefy in contention.

Yasuchika’s face takes on a moue of sickened disbelief. Yorihisa hides his face in his hand, a motion cleverly disguised by his turning his back on the White Duvet Mountain – Akira loves his friend like a brother, but sometimes he sees why he wants to give up on his eldest. If only Takashi weren’t involved in the whole madness…

And then, unexpectedly, the White Duvet Mountain shifts again, grows in berth, and a fourth sigh emits from the heap of warmth before he Satoshi’s face emerges close to his brother’s, more relaxed than when he had tried to embrace the central heating.

“This is such a good idea.”

Akira is not completely sold on that but as the day progresses, the four of them are the only ones to utter not one complaint about the chill that creeps in from the hallways whenever the maids or servants enter the room and he thinks that maybe they had been on to something.

And while he can see that Yorihisa wants to say something – even Kaede looks on somewhat pensively – when the children, all five of them, although Yasuchika does not join The Conglomerate of the White Duvet Mountain, agree to watch a run of Documentaries he finds everyone placated enough to leave them be. At least for the duration of the Blizzard.

They catch a lucky break on the third day and The Conglomerate of the White Duvet Mountain dissolves willingly and of its own once proper heating returns. That his son and their guest remain glued to each other is, by then, no longer a source of wonderment. Even Yasuchika has stopped giving them confused glares.

“He _is_ going to court her, yes?”, Yorihisa inquires quietly on the morning of the fifth day when the state of emergency has already been lifted for a day and the Haninozuka estimate their return home to be safe enough.

“If he doesn’t you can be certain that I will be sending him on a year's worth of Onion Boot Camps.”, Akira admits – but both he and his friend know Takashi; if he isn’t already courting the young commoner, it can not be too long now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honesty time! I have no ideas about blizzards. Like... We have snow and stuff, lots of it too sometimes but like... I had to wiki what constitutes as a blizzard :/ so like... sorry... for all the incorrectnessessess...ess


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which there is a big blunder and a tiny celebration

January passes in a flurry of thick flocks, studying, the young commoner falling asleep on her notes and in Master Takashi’s lap, blessedly little illness and mostly cozy evenings.

On the fourth of February Akiko finds Haruhi wordlessly baking a cake although Kaede-sama has not taken it upon herself to hide the learning materials of the young woman. She does not offer any explanation when Akiko sits down in her usual spot, watching with rapt attention that grows when Haruhi will not allow her even one taste of the batter or the glaze.

It is only when the young Master Takashi enters the kitchen, some time in the afternoon, with a hand full of candles and tilts his head to invite her out that a tentative idea blooms in her.

She doesn’t walk far and, indeed, comes to a halt just next to the door that remains open – if only by a wide enough crack to ascertain propriety is being kept behind it. Akiko watches the young Master deposit his candles and unassumingly wrap his arms around the nonverbal young woman who barely reacts to the physical advance – which is unusual.

Even months into their uncommon friendship and her tendency to burrow into the most uncommon sources of heat – i.e. Takashi-sama – Haruhi Fujioka always finds a way to thank him for allowing her such liberty with at least a quick smile. This time, however, something else is bothering her.

Akiko sends a younger maid for Kaede-sama and prays that her gut-feeling might be wrong.

The Lady arrives just when the cake is out of the oven and both Takashi-sama and Fujioka-kun are having a hot spot of tea waiting for the delicacy to cool off sufficiently. It is obvious that the young woman is antsy even now, when usually the action of baking calms her down enough for her rational mind to take over and start assembling solutions to a problem that would be bothering her. Akiko starts to be uncertain whether this particular problem can be solved satisfactorily – not today she assumes and in the back of her mind looms the foreboding impression that it is a bit too late to solve it in a good way at all.

Takashi-sama makes his guest finish her tea before they stand again and he wraps his arms around her waist, remaining close without limiting her movement as she whips up a soft citrusy cream the household has not seen her do yet. Akiko wonders how it would taste and swallows around her fantasies – her father had always encouraged her appreciation for the art of cookery; and Fujioka-kun’s baking is some of the best she’s come across. But this time it does not seem that the cake is made for general consumption – at least she doesn’t think it is.

When the white fluffy cream is done, the young woman separates the cake into two layers with a cake wire Akiko is not certain she has seen around the kitchen ever – but she could easily be mistaken, given how rarely anyone dared to touch the almost sacred utensils the late Morinozuka-baa-sama had been the last to properly put to use.

With practiced motions Fujioka-kun parts the cake and carefully spreads the white, fluffy cream on the lower half of the cake. Takashi-sama is not talking, but he is also not interrupting her and now-- now Akiko can slowly see the dropping of shoulders that she has been waiting on for some time; now the jitters in the slender, small hands ebb away. When the other half of the cake is on top of the cream and the cake has been pasted haphazardly with the cream – not in Fujioka-kun’s usual style and grace – Takashi-sama moves away from her for the first time, reaching quietly for the candles he has brought with him earlier.

They watch as the Morinozuka heir evenly and deftly distributes the candles on top of the cake and when he flicks a lighter out of his sleeve the two of them have still not moved from the kitchen counter.

There is a short silence in the following moments when the candles have been lit, in which Takashi-sama, still mostly wrapped around Fujioka-kun, reaches out to extinguish the big light in the kitchen and plummets it into relative darkness. The only remaining lighting is the natural shine of the white snow beaming through the large window at the other end of the kitchen and the warm glow of the candles in front of them.

And then… “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Haruhi, happy birthday to you.”

Oh…  
What a grandiose blunder to make for the house of Morinozuka.

 

* * *

 

Kaede almost doesn’t dare to look at the young woman who has ceased to be merely ‘common’ when she serves the cake for desert in the evening. Akira gives the cream-work a curious glance, before he cautiously has a taste and closes his eyes in satisfaction over a job well-done despite the initial outlook.

Across the table Haruhi Fujioka smiles softly into the tea her eldest son has placed before her when the time for desert had come – she’s not certain but she thinks that Takashi might have gone out of his way to make the only thing he is remotely good at in the kitchen: outlandish tea concoctions (the likes that, usually, no one but Mitsukuni knew how to appreciate verbally). She hums delicately into her cup and the small quirk of her son's lips lets her know he’s heard it.

Satoshi contently savors the taste of the lemon-cream she has watched being made earlier and Kaede doesn’t know how to stand it any longer and quietly rises from her seat; she knows her distress is showing.

However, before she can find the right words, her oldest catches her eyes and she watches him shake his head carefully with a mostly open face turned towards her. Reaching for her empty plate instead, he piles another piece of cake on her plate and pushes it back at her. When she gives the young woman a look, Haruhi is smiling at her with something unfamiliar in her eyes, but she nods and so Kaede sits back down takes another bite of cake.

It’s the only cake Takashi keeps pushing at the family members until every last morsel is gone. They are filled to the brim with sweetness and satisfaction when the maids and servants come to fetch the plates. Akiko does not seem surprised that the cake is gone.

Only once the table is cleared does the family get up. Kaede watches her eldest curve his arm around the shoulders of the younger female and making no secret of pulling her along to his own room – alerted by the deviance from their usual routine, Takashi is usual one to pick up on it quickly and uphold it rather staunchly, Akira follows quietly. Kaede, though she thinks she might have seen enough, accompanies him.

 

* * *

 

“Happy Birthday.”, he says softly when he hands her a parcel that, she can see, he has painstakingly wrapped. It’s not perfect and there is a bit too much tape than maybe necessary, but her heart warms at the work he has obviously put into it.

She wants to tell him that he shouldn’t have but-- “Thank you.”

His hand smooths through her hair; she needs to have it cut soon lest she start to look more female than might be good for the Host Club. When he motions for the futon, Haruhi sits without much thought to it. This place is _safe_ – she knows it is. She’s lain here twice, unconscious, weak, and he’d protected her.

As he has today.

Today, when the rest of the Host Club has forgotten. When even her father has yet to phone. He has protected her; he has sung to her, he has forgone his ritualistic distance from her when he realized that there was something wrong about her day of days.

He is perched on the edge of his chair while she carefully dismantles the tape around the box and it is only as she unravels it that she starts to have an inkling about the contents of the box – she catches his look once but he refuses to be ashamed of his actions and meets her stare head on.

No words pass between them and after a moment she continues to peel away the wrapping until nothing but a solid blue box remains on her knees.

Her fingers tremble a little when she opens the deep package yet she is not necessarily surprised by the contents. She is admittedly a little shaken at its quality.

“Mori-”

“Ah.”, he interrupts her with something like an admonishing sound before she can even complete her sentence and she catches his eyes with slight desperation – she couldn’t possibly--

“It’s a gift.”, he intones. “Not adding a tally against you. A gift. For your _birthday_.” And then his eyebrow lifts in slight mocking, accompanied by a smirk that should not make him look so boyish. _And what do we say when we receive gifts?_ He seems to ask.

She cannot help the small, amused huff that escapes her as she bends back over the carton, eyeing her gift, and then looks back at him. She’s blushing, she just knows it. “Thank you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I wanted Mori to not be perfect at wrapping gifts... because...)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which there is Onsen and alcohol  
> ...in which there is coarse language (!!! there are f-bombs in here !!!)  
> ...in which safety is important

The coat he has given her as a birthday present is warm and solid around her, wrapping her in a figurative hug that soothes her when he is not present to warm her. He does however pick up a tendency to wrap her in his own scarves and even tilts his own sweaters and hoodies over her when the central heating of the school gives out for two afternoons due to one last effort of winter to make the nation quiver in its boots. Ouran doesn’t close immediately because the high society takes some kind of perverted joy in parading around their various extreme-temperature-gear and Haruhi cannot help but think it absolutely ridiculous.

The Club hosts a Swedish Sauna Pageant that makes the young heiresses of renown swoon and Haruhi seriously rethink her involvement before Kyoya’s glasses catch the light and glint at her with eastern promises and she acquiesces. On the other side she gets away with tilting her head at the artful physique of the Morinozuka heir – and maybe she blushes when he catches her gaze, her blood certainly roars in her ears, but with any luck the heat trapped by the wooden walls will make it seem as if due to another cause.

Used to the insanity, she, too, knows that she has no chance of escape despite her struggle when the rich bastards of the Host Club kidnap her one evening – Takashi is guilty as well this time – to enjoy their weekend at a privately owned Onsen with traditional inclinations.

 

**

 

As the only female, she enjoys the luxury of her own room – willing to go as far as to take the additional cost to her debt when Kyoya presents her with the alternatives. She knows, however, that her sense of privacy is merely an illusion – as had proven the twins earlier when they’d waltzed in to empty her coffer of her _sensible_ clothing (and her pullovers!) exclaiming over the lack of quality or her sense of aesthetic.

In a sense that is normal, however, and thus the initial idea that she is safe within the four walls that have been appointed to her remains. More so when the loud voices of the boys pass her door after dinner and neither comes knocking. She takes the evening off to sink into one of the poetry collections Kaede-san had slipped into her coffer.

Her safety is an illusion thoroughly destroyed when Tamaki-sempai climbs through her window at almost exactly midnight.

“What the- Sempai! What do you think you’re _doing_?!”, she has been out of her bed since she’s noticed the strange shape at her window, but before she has finished speaking, she is now at the door, hand on the handle, ready to open it and flee at a moment’s notice. This is Tamaki-sempai; she does not, generally, fear him, but she is also not certain if she can trust him.

“Ah, my beautiful daughter--”, and he’s drunk. She is all too familiar with the cadence of his lilt to know that this young man has long since passed the premises of sobriety.

“No.”, she doesn’t even know _what_ it is she is saying ‘no’ to, but she gets the feeling it is a good start; nothing good can come from this situation. “You are drunk and it is in the middle of the night and you are not going to be in my room for an extended period of time while I am too. _No._ ” And what is he even doing here? What is this? How did he even climb the side of the house in his condition?

“But… but… Haruhi--”, he drags out the ‘i’ of her name and all she can think of is her father lying on the matted floor of their small flat as his employer explains to her that he’s been drinking ever since he had realized that today was parent-teacher-meeting and she had not forwarded the invitation. That, however, had been her father, and she could deal with his clinginess. Tamaki Suoh is another story. She is not obligated to deal with his clinginess… or general drunkenness.

“I jus’ wanna ta-talk.”, he hiccups once but manages fine otherwise as he walks closer and she can _smell_ the alcohol on him. It’s beer mostly, the sour tang of sake leaving out, but it’s enough to make her heart hammer in her throat. He is too close. Too unfamiliar. (And she knows what happens to young unsuspecting women in the near vicinity of drunken man who do not understand the word No even when not inebriated.)

“Tomorrow.”, she shoots him down, with a voice way more steady than she feels. She is already opening the door when he makes one step closer, the shy light of the hallway that seeps through the crack illuminates his red eyes and his pale face. Right then she fears him. And she doesn’t hesitate to step out of the room, her sempai still within its dark confines, when a jittery thought flashes across her mind: if Tamaki is drunk there is a high probability that the twins were too… actually there is a likelihood of all the hosts being slightly not-sober. She contemplates her course of action once, but one look at the alcohol-zombie that shuffles closer to her yet again and she knows that she is not going to remain here.

“Sleep now.”, she closes the door in his face and ignores the pounding of her heart in her throat as she walks away maybe quicker than necessary.

At the very least he remains in her room as she leaves.

 

**

 

“Are you drunk?”, is the first thing she asks when he opens his door to her; the light of the hall-way makes him squint and while he doesn’t _smell_ of alcohol he nods either way. Haruhi hesitates for the blink of a moment. “Is Hani-sempai with you?”

He nods again and this time she relaxes a bit. Maybe she shouldn’t – because chances are that Hani-sempai, too, had indulged and walking into a room with two inebriated men as an unwed woman who is unable to defend herself especially if the two men in question are a) older than her, b) quite versed in the arts of fighting (and thus restriction of an opponent) is maybe not the best idea. Taking into account, too, that she has just fled one man. It _feels_ better than the options at hand however.

She takes a breath and her heart is still hammering in her throat; she thinks he might be able to make out her pulse. “Are you two _safe_?”, she asks then and Mori-sempai’s eyes widen too fast for her to understand before a mumbled curse passes through his lips and he is already pushing her behind him, throwing a quick look outside to make certain no one has seen her.

“Mitsukuni.”

Hani is lying in one of the two beds, but he is not yet fully asleep by the looks of it because he sits up immediately upon having his name called.

“Takashi?”, he moves to turn on the lamp, but Mori beats him to it; stops his endeavor. Haruhi thinks she can see the urgency wash over from Mori to Hani like a tidal wave. “What is it?”

“We need to hide Haruhi.”

It occurs to her just then that… it might not just be Tamaki who might try to find her in her room that night. But surely--

Hani curses so violently that she jerks involuntarily. Takashi’s hand on her shoulder surprises her momentarily but the touch is familiar and she relaxes as he rubs soothing circles as the smaller man explodes into action. “’s the alcohol. He gets very… coarse.” She nods, listening to the expletives that pour out of the blond’s mouth at miraculous speed; Takashi drapes himself over her shoulder. “Don’ worry too much, ‘kay? We’ll do our best.”

The beating of her heart calms only slightly, because she knows that even in his current state, he is telling the truth. He would protect her. Takashi is _safe._ She takes a deep breath – then another. A minute later Takashi pushes her down onto a mattress that has somehow appeared between the two beds; there are three pillows on it and three blankets.

“Sorry for the squeeze.”, Hani says quietly. “Couldn’t think of a better spot to defend ‘gainst those fuck’n morons. Fuck’n booze.”

Takashi groans as he maneuvers the two of them down onto the mattress. “Mitsu.” He rolls her into her own blanket before he lies down under his, placing it over the two of them in a familiar ritual. She curls into the heat he emanates and swallows through the boulder in her throat.

The blond takes his place on her other side. “Sorry, okay. Bloody words just fuck’n…”

“ _Mitsu._ ”

Haruhi reaches out to blindly pat his blond mop in acceptance of his apology. He grunts and then there is only breathing.

 

**

 

Twice during the night she is startled awake. Once when their door rattles as if a tormented ghost were trying to haunt them but it will not give – it’s maybe one in the morning but she doesn’t have a watch and doesn’t know. In the darkness she thinks she can make out Hani sitting up with something that looks suspiciously like a bunny-eared-kunai in his hand. She shivers and Takashi-sempai’s heavy arm snakes around her middle, pulling her closer into his orbit. She takes a breath and hates the prick of tears in the corner of her eyes. Burrowing into him is as much an attempt at ignoring the fear in her throat as it is trying to block out the noise with his heartbeat. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to sleep again – but when there is a loud crash in the next room, she shocks up from the mattress and realizes that she _must_ have fallen asleep again.

Takashi bundles her closer to his chest again, strong hands cradling her head and effectively cutting off much of her hearing. Going by the slight chill in her back she thinks that maybe Hani has left the room to dole out revenge but then there is a calm, small, hand in her neck so that cannot be it. She focuses on their soothing touches and the sound of her own blood echoing like a rush of the sea in the shells of Takashi’s large hands. Her fingers claw into his shirt and she doesn’t let go.

Coming might have been a stupid idea. Not that she has had much of a choice in it – it’s just the first time she regrets it.

But they don’t lose a word on it when the morning dawns and after a week she believes the rest of the Host Club slowly lets the dust settle. (It is not the first time she notices that this is their preferred way of dealing with uncomfortable issues, but it is the first time she wants to rebel against this tactic.)

 

* * *

 

Haruhi dances more readily into the orbit of Takashi and Mitsukuni; the two people that she knows – knows, so deeply – she can trust. She wears Takashi’s pullovers with more pride when he pulls them over her head and she finds that she develops a certain preference for them when they have been worn by him and not washed before they make the transition to her – his scent in her nostrils warms her at least as good as his presence in her back does.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which winter is no more (say WHAT ???!!!)

 

Mid-March, finally, the snow starts to let up and even thaw in select regions. The news do not quite dare to speak of the start of Spring yet, but the landlord to Haruhi’s condominium is convinced enough of the ameliorating weather that she commissions a company for the replacement of the boiler and a general renovation of the house. Haruhi gets the feeling that she might just have to impose on the Morinozuka longer than she thought.

Akiko finds her baking her third tray of cookies and gingerly sits down on her usual seat. The woman is a welcome face to Haruhi who is not quite literate in the ways of the high society and doesn’t know the protocol to ask to be able to stay maybe a bit longer – just until her living arrangements are stable again. It is quite a _commoner problem_ after all.

“You are aware that neither Akira-sama nor Kaede-sama would even think of throwing you out of the compound until reparations to your housing have been finished.”, the woman states without prompting, finding her eyes with an open, honest stare as she bites into a ginger cookie and hums through her chewing.

Haruhi puts the third tray down and guides the curious fingers of the other woman away from it with downtrodden patience. “Still hot.”, she admonishes as she sits down, quiet for a few moments. “I mean… Haven’t I imposed on you long enough?”

The finely plucked brow of the woman arches as she swallows, moving to pour herself a small cup of the cold green tea close to them.

 

* * *

 

“Fujioka… Haruhi… May I call you that? Haruhi-san?”

The commoner woman nods readily. “You can rest assured that if either Kaede-sama or Akira-sama, or even Satoshi-sama or Takashi-sama grew tired of your presence, you would be notified of that fact.”, she takes a small, appreciative, sip. “This is a generous family, and while not all of them are constantly verbose, I have it on good authority that you have gotten relatively good at deciphering non-verbal clues.”, she winks at the flushed face of the woman and is only a little disappointed to watch her clearing away her tools.

Three trays of various cookies however, she thinks later, are sufficient for one bout of stress-baking. Mitsukuni-sama will demolish any remaining cookies should the Morinozuka family fail to finish them soon enough for whatever reason.

 

* * *

 

Without any justification to seek the comfort of Takashi’s warming nearness, Haruhi reluctantly unglues herself from his person and slowly tries to get used to being a self-sufficient human and student again. It is harder than she openly wants to admit.

Learning is a challenge at first when the soothing scent of Takahi’s aftershave is nowhere to be found now that his blazer no longer drapes around her and even his hands and affections have become more stilted – hesitant.

Where love blooms around them in tandem with the budding flowers, Haruhi cannot help but wish for the cold chills of winter to return so that she may be allowed to crawl into the safety of Takashi’s orbit again, get away with the warmth of his body in her back and relish in his steadfast stability at her side.

It is a hellish withdrawal process that starts with no longer wearing the treasured coat he has gifted to her – too hot for the rapidly warming days – and then soon after that needing to discard his pullovers as well lest she succumb to a heat-stroke. She will unashamedly confess that she has found herself lying flat on her back twice with no recollection how she got there due to a surplus of warmth before she had conceded with a heavy heart to part from the latter. Robbed thus of Takashi’s nearness and even his proxies, Haruhi could regularly be found secluding herself in the guest room that the Morinozuka family still held at the ready for her.

She does, however, not bother to attempt to learn alone whenever she knows that Takashi is on the compound. Should he need to learn, she would join him in the living room, discarding their blazers and leaning against each other as they go through their notes, scripts and revisions. It is a little consolation but it is better than nothing.

 

* * *

 

 

He knows why she isn’t in his lap any longer. But he doesn’t have to like it.

When it had been winter, her inability to keep healthy and then sufficiently warm had allowed them to transcend their usual reservations about public displays of a sort of affection of the physical kind – and in the beginning this had been all that had drawn them together. His need to help, serve and protect and her proclivity to seek out heat-sources indiscriminately.

Over the time he had thought they’d developed something more. Something deeper.

He is not entirely certain it was sturdy enough however; not any longer. Not when she makes the first motions to unwind herself from him, glacially slow. That is, until he picks up her general air of dissatisfaction and reluctance that gives him enough reason to hope that maybe… maybe she doesn’t want to leave the circle of his arms any more than he wants her to leave it.

The trouble, however, lies in his uncanny failure to find a suitable solution to the problem that would not rush either of them or even tip a hand he is not yet entirely certain he really holds.

And so they continue to occupy the living room for as many of their waking hours as they can.  
Sundays Off, too, are spent in the living room.

 

* * *

 

Profits have been fluctuating unpleasantly as of late. There has been a distinct drop in, purely hypothetical, income around the midst of March when temperatures got warmer again and have been going topsy-turvy in a frustratingly unpredictable manner whose code he cracks one Tuesday Afternoon.

Haruhi has managed to regain civilized behavior in regard to the outside temperatures and gradually isn’t quite as bothered by open windows as she has been in recent months and that is when he discovers that… the moments between her and Mori have _dwindled_ into near inexistence. Where before he hasn’t needed to look for a particular moment in which they would share a touch or a look or even a task, now it takes inexplicably long time for them to transform the anticipating tension between them into a palpable – marketable – action.

He realizes that the days his profits increase are the days when they have at least one such a moment because he floats on profit for Mori-sempai’s birthday.

 

* * *

 

The Fifth of May is like light at the end of the tunnel for her. Hani has been happy to send a chauffeur with the cake she has been working on late into the night to the school before Takashi could get wind of it and had smiled widely when he had seen the _second_ cake she’d made for the celebration with his family.

This morning when he had taken a bite of the cake, she had watched in fascination and pleased pride, the relish of a usually reserved man at the bitter taste of real cocoa and raspberries – Satoshi’s face had gone blank for an amusing moment before he’d found the raspberries and relaxed into the cake.

Their way to the school is quiet, but passed in almost constant bodily contact when she sidles up to him and pushes their boundaries as much as she thinks she can. He relaxes against the small of her body on the routine drive to Ouran and his presence in her side becomes infinitesimally more solid even though they are not driving a turn.

 

**

 

And then comes the afternoon.

Kyoya has received Mitsukuni’s okay for a Host Club celebration of Mori’s eighteenth birthday and so, when Takashi comes to collect her for Club activities – after the fountain-incident, he has been unwilling to let her go to the club alone afterwards, it seems it is a tradition he is keen on keeping – she is already giddy for the celebration. No matter the masses of young ladies who will, too, attend.

She has something special planned. Just something small.

 

**

 

The hosting is in full swing when Haruhi excuses herself from her table and her guests to fetch some more tea – she specifies that it is going to be raspberry tea and the word quickly makes the round much to the amusement of Haruhi, who vanishes into the tea-cupboard smiles at the cake Mitsukuni has hidden away there.

There are fond memories in this cupboard – of almost-fevers and warm bodies, of an unintentional collision that still sets her heart aflutter.

She uncovers the cake, flicking a lighter out of her sleeve and just as she has lit the last candle a surprised hush and a few select squeals reach her ear – her smile widens. It is time.

 

**

 

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Takashi, happy birthday to you.”

She thinks that to the rest of the guests and hosts the fact that she calls him, ever so quietly, by his first name basically to his face, is lost in the soft murmur of voices joining the little song, but in the warm glow of the candles she thinks she can tell that his eyes are on hers – and the warmth in her stomach says he’s heard her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (i think Satoshi would be a secret little sweet-tooth)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which we feel it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (i don't even _know_ why we're on chapter e-flopping-leven on this !!!

“Frosty the snowman--!”, Kaoru mocks ahead of her, “Was a jolly, happy soul!”, his brother seamlessly picks up the line from next to her, elbow hooked around her neck as he pulls her along crowing their jaunt in their latest stroke of genius. She turns a deaf ear to their shenanigans but wishes she could find a way to escape the painful crick in her neck.

“Frosty, the snowman, is a fairytale they say!”, the Duo exuberantly throw the doors to the Music Room open, Haruhi hanging mostly limp from the fast hold Hikaru has on her, their cawing reaching an awkward crescendo as they twirl her into the midst of the confused club, at the very least they know how to attract a crowd. “So she said let’s run and have some fun, for I’ll never melt away!”

Takashi reaches for her out of instinct and she gratefully sinks back-first into the solid safety of his chest ignoring, for now, their usual distance – ever since March. His heart sounds happy in her ear.

“Explain yourself.”, Kyoya gripes, distinctly less professional than is the norm for him, “It’s twenty-nine degrees outside and you act as if it’s Christmas.”

She is trying to sink deeper into Takashi and maybe vanish into the pocket of his shirt or one of his blazer when she is violently yanked forwards by her collar in a motion that comes even too unexpected for Takashi to stop it. Hikaru is holding her like an offering lamb to an irate looking Ootori – she hopes her dispassionate stare can impress upon him how very little she has to do with whatever inane scheme they’ve cooked up this time. It might be her only chance of survival.

“Feel it!”, Kaoru jubilees instead and before Haruhi can protest that she’s not an ‘it’ and ‘can you not?!’ the twin’s hand has shot forwards, clasping her wrist and pushing it against the cheek of one Kyoya Ootori.

This is awkward.

And then Kyoya melts.

 

**

 

It is a little known fact that Kyoya Ootori is not a friend of warm climates. She would never have been able to tell what with his readiness to agree to Tamaki’s Balinese Schemes or the Tropical Resort or even the Beach later but apparently--

“I burn.”, he grunts annoyed when she finally comes around to ask, and, indeed, the bridge of his nose looks somewhat… abused; red and uncharacteristically raw for the third son of Yoshio Ootori.

“And the _sweat_.”, he produces a garbled sound of disagreement from the back of his throat and Haruhi doesn’t get around to asking about his behavior towards the customers during their two respective outings in warmer climates because she answers them herself: there were customers. No way would he ever threaten his own profit margin by behaving below par in any way.

 

**

 

In the consecutive hosting ours, Haruhi is handed from host to host for the discovered newness of yet another intricacy about the Natural Type, and even asked to touch customers more often than maybe she has been before – all, of course, in the name of reducing her debt.

She cannot help the small smile when one day Mitsukuni abuses this new club-habit to push her glacially cold hands into the nape of Takashi and the tall Kendoka’s shoulders drop in such obvious relief that even the customers stare over their porcelain cups of iced tea.

Mitsukuni giggles. “Haru-chan is like a personified cool-bag.”, he exclaims and while Takashi’s quiet ‘Mitsukuni’ admonishes the Loli Shota enough to apologize to Haruhi about it, she mollifies him by disclosing that her former class-mates had rather shared the sentiment and takes the opportunity to maybe smooth her cool palms a little further into the collar of the tall man.

 

* * *

 

He takes one afternoon to ponder this new development.

Haruhi is still living with them due to the extensive repairs necessary to the – apparently antique – condominium she has been inhabiting as a tenant with her father, and so he can take his time finding a response to his ruminations on the young woman, but he does not want to waste the time by merely turning the thought over in his mind. As in a bout, there is always a time to act – and his gut tells him: it has come.

They are sitting in the living room, walls to the engawa opened wide in the hopes of allowing a breeze to cool off their warm bodies. Spring had barely been a season this year; extreme temperatures followed by extreme temperatures swinging widely on the spectrum of the temperature scale and thus, even now, in June, the air is sweltering.

And next to him is Haruhi; cool, refreshing Haruhi who is so cold she could probably hold a beer for an extended period of time and still hand it out in its cool state. No wonder she had had trouble with winter if this is how her body handles summer.

But this is his chance. All winter it had irked him that, initially, it had been her to have made the first step that would bring upon them their physical nearness – a closeness that would prompt a soaring rise in his grades as well as a blooming affection for the young woman. And he knows himself to be a traditionalist. It’s the way he’s been raised after all. He knows that he would have liked to be the one to say he’d made the first step. And he hadn’t. Not really.

Granted she’d been feverish beyond logic when she had unintentionally made a move on him but the fact remains that, out of the two of them, it had been her who had first closed the distance between them. And this, he decides, he could not simply let go. Not in the long run.

 

**

 

It is the next afternoon when he is done copying his inattentive class notes to more easily readable ones that he packs her onto his lap with a sigh of contentment at the cool temperature she emanates before he bends over his revisions.

Mitsukuni, opposite of them, gives him a beaming smile – he cannot see Haruhi exactly, but maybe, by the softening of his cousin’s smile, she is blushing. He thinks he would like that.

 

* * *

 

When he comes back from his morning training – by when Taka-nii will already have completed his and have Hani-nii roused – he is unsurprised to find his brother in the living room with Haruhi-san, studying. He is so excited that morning, soaring on his recent win, that he doesn’t check his indoor-voice – as kaa-san’s immediate presence at his side informs him.

“Yo, Taka-”, he stalls – not merely for the lowering of his volume upon the insistent and very thorough stare of his mother, but also for close inspection of his brother – there is something off about his silhouette. “Haruhi-san.” A blink. “You have something on your shoulder.”

In a reminiscent movement, the young woman barely reacts other than patting the mop of hair that’s draped over her shoulder in a feat that should be anatomically impossible, considering his brother has decided to serve as her cushion as well as her back-rest, when _it_ moves at the comment. “Ah.”

He has, heretofore, only witnessed the propensity of one Haruhi Fujioka to seek out heat sources without shame – even going as far as to drape herself over free-standing heating units all over the scholastic campus. This behavior had, throughout the harsh winter, extended to the figure of his nii-san and while odd at first, the family had come to accept this behavior as a given fact. Satoshi, too, is well aware that his parents are looking at Haruhi-san as a potential spouse for his older brother and, quite frankly, it is mostly a done deal in his own mind. He cannot truly imagine Taka-nii to behave so freely with any other woman.

And yet… that had been _before_ the break of spring and this atrocious heat that is currently erasing all memories of this year’s winter. And he doesn’t doubt Taka-nii, ever, so there must be a solid reason to have this behavior extend even into this period of the year. And to have his mother so accepting of it.

Haruhi-san gives him an encouraging and soothing smile when he takes a politely cautious seat opposite of his mother who has taken a place next to Taka-nii – he is revising as diligently as usual – and carefully hands out refreshing cups of iced tea. She brushes hands with Haruhi when the cup makes the transition.

“Kami-sama, Haruhi, you are colder than Sapporo in winter.”

“Kaa-san.”, comes his reflexive answer, slightly exasperated. Taka-nii doesn’t bat an eye at their interaction, and Haruhi exchanges a soft, knowing smile with Hani-nii over the table before she takes a cautious sip of the beverage – well aware to not spill a single drop on her or Taka-nii’s notes.

“Satoshi.”, his mother retorts dryly, as if in greeting, reaching out to touch Haruhi-san’s hand again as if she hadn’t just rudely commented on the bodily temperature of one of nii-san’s friends – the female host readily lets it happen with a patient smile.

“Rude.”, he reminds her of the glaringly obvious, gesturing to his mother’s wandering hands as she checks the cheeks of the young woman. “Have you touched her recently?”, she questions in reply and Taka-nii grunts his dissent only once when kaa-san checks his temperature too. His mother apologizes with a pat to his head before she retracts her hands again.

Satoshi gapes. “ _Rude_.”, he repeats with more stress on the word but he accepts the proffered hand Haruhi-san stretches out into his direction and gets the shock of his life.

“Holy shi-itake mushrooms what the actual f-roghops.”, he gasps as he realizes just what his mother meant by ‘colder than Sapporo in winter’.

“ _Satoshi._ ”, the admonishment comes from three different voices though his mother’s is definitely the most prominent among the chorus. He is still too focused on the glacial hand in his; suddenly uncertain Taka-nii has not frozen to the body of the smaller woman.

He shrugs the idea off, giving the moving lump on Haruhi-san’s shoulder a considering look before he experimentally lets go of the hand and realizes that he has not remained stuck to it. He returns his attention to his mother: “Somebody had to inherit your mouth. And it wasn’t going to be Taka-nii...”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Satoshi you potty mouth!!!)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...which is an interlude (really! ... ...that's a good reason to have it be so short)

Haruhi doesn’t mind when Takashi drapes himself over her and sighs lightly in relaxation as the chill of her body soaks through the light shirts they wear soothing him from the warmth.

She doesn’t quite know how they get away with it, considering the additional attention on Takashi what with this being his last year and his heart-wrenching clinch with Mitsukuni – before it is resolved in an all-out match that she closes her ears and eyes to because these are the men that are both _safe_ and she doesn’t want to see them going at each other even when it is within the confines of a technically regulated match in a sport that they are both more than well versed in.

When it’s over both Mitsukuni as well as Mori drape over her and she lets it happen.

“Don’ worry too much, ‘kay?”, Mitsukuni murmurs some time into their impromptu cuddle. “We’ll do our best.”

“Ganbatte.”, she answers just as quietly. “Ganbatte.”, because there are two people she wishes it to.

But even afterwards Takashi does not hold back. In the library’s darkest corner where she escapes to regularly to flee the loud masses of students, rejoicing in and equally suffering from the heat, Takashi finds her and unceremoniously pulls her into his lap undoing his blazer and sinking into the coolness of her back before their silence will envelop them and their studying will take hours.

 

**

 

In the privacy of the compound, Haruhi has slowly started to embrace the small gift Mei had forwarded her as a late birthday present – not necessarily out of forgetfulness rather than bad timing.

“I had a comic-con two days prior and… I am sorry to admit that I didn’t think of starting your suit any earlier.”

Haruhi doesn’t mind; because the piece of clothing is quickly becoming her favorite. Simple in color and cut, it is a soft, jump-suit, sans ruffles or taffeta or lord-knows what the twins would have put her in and she feels comfy as well as feminine when wearing it. The straps are thin and delicate on her shoulders and she is decently covered while lightly dressed at the same time.

Kaede expresses her approval of the garment when she first sees it and promptly vanishes with Mei to discuss cuts and colors of the coming season.

Takashi expresses his approval by promptly sinking down onto her shoulders.

 

* * *

 

Akira doesn’t know why he hasn’t thought of it any earlier.

Haruhi Fujioka is not of majority and is, as such, not exactly allowed to live alone without the express permission of her legal guardian. And while he would never go as far as to leverage her continued stay at his compound, he is parent enough to make an offer to her distraught father when he has failed to reach Haruhi over the telephone for the third day in a row.

He will be unable to come back any time soon – his tournée takes him farther into the continent.

“Sir, if I may make a proposal--”

Because if their children’s unusual closeness is anything to go by, even despite his son’s unconventional courting techniques, it seems that they might take their friendship a step further sooner rather than later either way. This idea of his might just be a well-advised course of action.

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which there is summer  
> ...and sass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (why am I like this...)

Summer, for the first time in a long time, is not spent helping Misuzu out at his pension. Mei has gotten over herself enough to make peace with her father on his gender-based proclivities to help out in Karuizawa. This, however, does not stop Haruhi – or the full force of the Host Club – to return to the small pension in the mountains; if only for an encore of last year’s Refreshing Battle.

Somehow Haruhi remembers it a lot more intense, but she laughs along genuinely when even Arai happens onto the group of them again. Hikaru is much better behaved this time and she doesn’t ask when the twins disappear with her former school friend in the evening and return surprisingly sloshed at two in the morning, singing a song in a dialect she knows they wouldn’t be able to speak if sober.

They don’t attempt to come into her room, however, and she breathes easily into the light shirt of Takashi.

 

**

 

They celebrate Tanabata in Karuizawa and Misuzu is more than happy to give Mei the days off which results in her and the twins missing together more often than Haruhi thinks could be coincidence, but when both Mitsukuni as well as Takashi gently – or excitedly, in the case of the former – guide her towards the river she throws up a quick prayer to Kotoko that she might help look over Mei for a while and allows herself to be pulled along.

Between Takashi and Mitsukuni she feels less self-conscious about her simple, forest-green flowered kimono.

She sings along with the children in the streets when she catches the first verse of the tanabata folk song from their mouths and catches Takashi’s gleaming eyes when she intones the rest of the couplets under her breath before she pulls them along towards the stands and into the remainder of the night.

They push their bamboo stalks out onto the water later that night, watching them artfully go up in flames under the star-sprinkled sky and she gets the deep, fulfilling sensation that her wish is, indeed, being heard.

 

**

 

The Host Club take her for the Southern Isles where she catches a bit too much sun on the first day when she relishes unthinkingly in the open-air poetry-slam she catches by chance. Takashi is careful in the evening when he rubs a fragrant ointment over her upper back and her shoulders and when her ache is gone the next morning, Mitsukuni winks at her and puts his finger on his lips.

Takashi smiles indulgently. “Family recipe. Confidentiality applies.” Haruhi smiles back at them and puts her finger to her own lips – when Kyoya asks about her rapid recovery, she tilts her head and all too innocently asks for clarification. The Ootori knows when information is withheld – he also knows when to pry and when not to. This time he doesn’t.

She is more careful about the sun in the subsequent days, but maybe she catches a break because Takashi glues himself to her back again – sighing in deep relaxation when the coolness of her body continues to hold even into the middle of the day.

“So cold.”, Mitsukuni sighs one day, putting her hand to his heart and Haruhi cannot help but shake her head at the general silliness of the heirs of the most honorable Clans in Japan that she knows of.

“You two must have been two pre-natal-beans-in-a-pod.”, she chortles one evening when Takashi has had his Day Off – she has discovered that she likes the way his stubble brightens from the exposure to sun – and had joined the incandescent tomfoolery that is a staple with the Host Club. To whatever end Tamaki had decided to hold a summer themed challenge that Kyoya had wisely sat himself aside for by declaring himself judge. Haruhi had been excluded from the start for some reason – but maybe that had been for the preservation of common sense, or as a gopher for Kyoya… or a professional apologizer to the locals. It is what she had ended up being anyways before Takashi and Mitsukuni put an end to the tournament by winning the cake-eating contest.

By a lava-cake landslide.

When she helps them to stumble into their beds, Takashi pulls her onto his mattress without much thought to it – Haruhi follows with even less thought to it. The two of them are, after all, safe as houses.

 

**

 

They return to Tyoko two weeks of freedom later and Haruhi finds herself relieved to be back in the gentle care of Kaede-sama and Akiko-san.

“Don’t tell them I said this but the lack of female companionship was… noticeable.”, she admits when she makes tea-flavored ice-cream one afternoon. Akiko-san catches her eyes over the bowls and smiles softly.

“You will make me blush with such comments.”

Haruhi snorts good-naturedly and smiles to show her lack of ill-intent as she dryly replies: “You mean I have the power to indeed put color to your perfectly pale countenance, Akiko-san? Me? A mere commoner?”

For a second the woman looks stumped before a large face breaks out over her face and Haruhi learns that she has unleashed the master of understated sarcasm on the Morinozuka compound. Akira-sama sighs dramatically when he finally walks in on the women freely exercising their banter-muscles in the living room over ice and cold tea but merely shakes his head when even his wife joins the verbal fray.

Satoshi requires help in closing his mouth more often than should be necessary for a young man of his age that afternoon.

 

**

 

Obon dawns quietly on the 15th of August and, rising way too early for the reserved holiday, Haruhi makes a conscious effort to silence her foot-steps in the hall-ways as she creeps towards the entrance and make a quick escape.

It is to no avail.

“Takashi?”, he looks like he has slept next to her provisions for the day, rumpled and uneasy, but when she haltingly whispers his name, he stands with his usual grace and greets her with a soft ruffle to her hair.

“Coming with.”, he says softly, leaving no room for argument – of which Haruhi has plenty. This is… private; she doesn’t want him to… she doesn’t--

“Only the gates.”, he placates soothingly, reading the stress in her body that she doesn’t know how to voice, before he takes her tools and points towards him and then her. “Safe.”

She buys him a coffee to cure his mono-syllability and he repays her in kind when she returns from the yard late in the afternoon.

“Thank you.”, she whispers when he pushes the wonder-ointment at her before he leaves the bathroom. He sends her Akiko to help with her abused shoulders and Haruhi doesn’t see him until dinner.

 

* * *

 

His family leaves for their own rituals the next day and Haruhi doesn’t take offense at not being included – she solemnly wishes them good prayers instead and meets up with Mei for home-made ice-cream and sharing stories about their mothers.

It is a good day and when she returns in the afternoon, she asks Akiko if it would be too presumptuous to make desert for the family.

“You have never asked this before.”, the woman answers with slightly knit brows and Haruhi shrugs.

“I’ve never done this on such a grave holiday as this one.”

Akiko’s lips twitch involuntarily at the unintended wordplay of their guest, but she nods in understanding. “Morinozuka-obaa-sama tended to make something exotic for the family – to allow the newness of the taste to take them away from their grief.”

“Exotic how?”

 

**

 

She makes them Austrian Sweet Dumplings that Akiko exclaims over when she first tastes one; Haruhi makes enough to probably last them a life-time, but taking into account the sweet tooth of both Akira Morinozuka as well as Mitsukuni Haninozuka it might just prove a sufficient amount. On a second thought she makes Dumplings without filling as well – hopefully more to the taste of Yasuchika.

“The families celebrate together, do they not?”, she wonders aloud as she sweats over the pots full of the sweet treats. Akiko hums behind her.

“Morinozuka-ojii-sama returned to the compound yesterday while you were occupied. Takashi-sama missed his arrival but most likely has made up for it by now.”

A quick stab of guilt sears through Haruhi as she remembers having left Takashi at the gates of the grave-yard like a chauffeur while he was missing out on the arrival of his grandfather. She almost groans at her insensitivity but mellows it down to a put-out sigh as she pushes the subject away. What has been done has been done. She focuses on the treats instead.

 

* * *

 

Haruhi-san is clearly fatigued from the work she has put into the desert and even though she has attempted to stay awake with the aid of an entire can of coffee, when the families returns, she has long fallen for the sweet lure of sleep. Akiko has been steadfast in her vigil at the side of their devoted guest and when Morinozuka-ojii-sama enters the kitchen there she is, meeting his eyes even as she bows in respect.

The man finds the sweet dishes before a word has fallen and his quick eyes slide from the sweets to the foreign woman before they find Akiko’s again. She knows he has understood. At first, she considers the possibility that, maybe, the families themselves are too worn out to enjoy the treats that the young woman has labored over the entire day but when the kitchen door opens next, Takashi-sama enters and his eyes catch on the resting young female with a softening gaze.

There might have been a smidgen of tension between the two of them these last two days but as he nods in deference to his grandfather and gently pries the young woman from her seated position and into his arms, she knows that this is a thing of the past now.

She slides from her stool when the young Master is out the door again.

“Ten plates?”, she asks quietly, already moving for the cupboards.

“Ah.”, comes the soft answer and when she turns back momentarily, she catches the honorable head of the Morinozuka Clan attempting to stuff his mouth by ingesting one of the prepared Dumplings with only one bite. He is foiled by its size, the filling and the coating of granulated crumbs. The look he gives her when he realizes this defeat speaks of awareness to his current appearance. She promises confidentiality without a word and he diverts his attention elsewhere, trying to salvage his image.

Akiko watches with ill-veiled amusement and curiosity as he swallows around the delicacy before she collects the plates and moves towards the rest of the assortment to proceed with the preparations.

“Fujioka-kun has advised me that Western-styled cutlery might be preferable for this dish.”, she informs the man quietly and he hums through his full-mouth, still chewing on the remnants. She knows how it tastes and takes his relaxed attitude towards his grandson’s behavior as a sign that the dumplings are to his liking. Score for Haruhi-san.

 

**

 

Akiko watches the family of nine – ancestor plate included in the laying of the table – as they somberly dig into their sweet treats and there is a bitter-sweet smile playing around the corners of the elder men as the foreign texture and taste explodes on their tongues.

She does not think it’s coincidence that Takashi-sama leaves one of his dumplings entirely untouched on his plate. Akiko makes certain the cooks don’t eat it in their curiosity – or worse, bin it.

Haruhi-san doesn’t ask for permission the next day when Kaede-sama is suspiciously absent during the day. When dinner comes around, there is a single serving of apple-strudel just for the lady of the house and Akiko doesn’t think her eyes are failing her when the two towering forms of the Morinozuka-heirs seem to be leaning closer to Haruhi-san than maybe necessary in a motion that could never be mistaken for anything else than thankfulness.

Nobody asks for even a single taste of it when Kaede-sama finally reaches for the desert and lets her ancestors have the first piece.

 

* * *

 

Eito Morinozuka has been briefed about his grandson’s unconventional courting behavior in regard to the guest on the compound – he has been warned to expect the unexpected but this… this has been too preposterous to even consider. He knows that Akira raised his grand-son better than this.

“Keiko I hope you see this.”, he finds himself muttering again and again. Kami, how often had she teased him that the taciturn composure of this grandson of his would not hold forever; that it would run out at some point. She’d bet him money, too. She is no doubt going to collect it when the time comes for him to join her.

Both Akira and Yorihisa had always been surprisingly tactile with their families when he and his brother certainly had not been to such an extent – admittedly it had yielded a batch of frighteningly proficient fighters, the likes of which their families had not brought forth in ages, and the kind of close-knit family many envied. The kind that rules and blind obedience could never create.

There is pride to be found in this.

Nevertheless… None of this could have prepared him for finding his grand-son draped unceremoniously over the back of the young commoner woman he knows to go by the name of Haruhi Fujioka; the very same young woman his grand-son had collected, ever so carefully, in his arms and brought, presumably, to bed just two days ago; the very same woman who had taken upon herself laborious hours in the kitchen, sweating over cooking water to help his family through their grim days.

He braves the living room with a soft sigh and a quick prayer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Morinozuka-men will crumble for desert)


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which autumn happens (and Kyoya is a fat housecat)

It is September when Takashi knocks on his door. Haruhi Fujioka has just accompanied Satoshi to his first day to Ouran High School whereas she has returned for her second year. The condominium is not fully repaired yet and even if it were, he has at the ready the express permission of her legal guardian to watch over her while he is out of the country. He is the emergency contact in case anything should happen.

His son is cautious when he enters his office in a way he hasn’t been since he’d come to admit to having been the one to unintentionally smash one of his mother’s statuettes during an overly enthusiastic battle against an imaginary foe. He’d come to collect his punishment and Akira had rewarded him for his honesty by merely making him clean the dojo for a month. Kaede had sighed at his leniency but understood his motivation.

For a moment, until his son is seated, he wonders what he could possible have ruined this time, but doesn’t come to a satisfactory conclusion before his son clears his throat and takes a deep breath that is reminiscent of the inhalation of someone preparing to take a deep plunge.

“I have come to ask for the permission to openly pursue Haruhi Fujioka.”, the words rush out of him along with the air he has collected and Akira cannot believe that this green man is the same two-times national Kendo champion who has bested his own grandfather in a bout just two weeks ago.

He blinks. Openly pursue… “You weren’t already?”, he asks curious.

“Ah?”, his son seems as confused as he is.

Akira rumbles a sigh and reaches for a nearby water-glass; he has needed to lead a longer phone call with one of their clients today and his voice-box had already been strained before his son had entered through his office door. Nevertheless, this is a conversation that needs verbal expression, and he is absolutely prepared to swallow a ton of cough drops if it means being able to have this talk with his son. It is high time after all.

He takes another breath and swallows around the hot, raw insides of his throat.

“Takashi… given your recent lack of physical distance _we_ thought…”, he gestures indefinitely with his left hand, “That you had already made your suit known to the young woman.”

“Ah.”, his son looks stumped by this, but seems to agree to the logic of it – even if he cannot find the words to communicate the subjectively true reasons for his, their, mentioned behavior. Akira doesn’t need to hear them right now either way.

“What about your Club? Have they not come to you for answers?”

Silence greets him and something akin to a light goes up in Akira’s mind – surely though with Kyoya Ootori… but then, no man is infallible…

“They haven’t noticed yet, have they?”

“Ah.”

“ _Ah._ ” Yes that made so much more sense.

 

**

 

He hands his son the receiver the next time Ranka-san rings for their scheduled call and finds immense pleasure in listening to him fumble through the question of being allowed to court the young woman. When the inquiry finally is out Akira has measured five minutes of phone call. Considering the call is going to Hungary, he’s not quite certain if he should dock the money from Takashi’s account – it would seem too mocking. Probably.

After all he still remembers _his_ attempt to ask Kaede’s parents for their permission to court their daughter. And it had been even worse when he had asked for their daughter’s hand – the kami know they must have wanted him to marry that beautiful woman, otherwise his foolish bumbling could not possibly have led anywhere at all.

There is worrying silence at the other side of the line, before Ranka-san heaves a quiet sigh.

“I knew one of you would get there in time but to have it be so soon...”

Akira’s eyebrow arches a little at this because he knows of marriages signed and sealed with the babes barely out of the womb of their mothers. To consider this _soon_ sounds new and foreign to his ears.

“Well… nothing to be done about it. At least you are the honorable one of the bunch. Just _no babies before I haven’t returned, you heard me young man?!_ ”

The entire country probably has and judged by Takashi’s quick assurance of that, evenly toned voice contrasting the red flare of his cheeks, ears and neck, his son is well aware of just how easily sound carries through the slim walls of the compound. Akira’s eyes are still laughing even when the call has ended and Kaede follows his son into the office belatedly. His offspring is, at that point, attempting to meld with the floor and vanish in the cracks that the ground might open up just for him.

He falls in love with his one-step-closer-to-possible-future-daughter-in-law when she quietly pushes a cup of tea at him in the evening that, when he takes a sip of it, wraps itself snugly around his vocal chords and, in a first moment, surprises him into cough with the sudden alteration to the roughness of his throat. It gets better when he takes a larger sip, and allows the foreign taste to take full effect on his voice box. When he swallows a third time, his throat feels half the size and the cough subsides long enough for him to grab a greedy lungful of air. He exhales in gratitude and meets her eyes.

She is already smiling at him from underneath the bulk of his eldest.

 

* * *

 

With October start Takashi and Mitsukuni’s courses at university and while she doesn’t quite know how they manage it, they still make time for the Host Club as much as they can.

Autumn settles fully over the land and for some reason a record number of Shinto priests and priestesses are called into action by a worried populace to pray for a bountiful harvest as well as a gentle winter. Haruhi doesn’t quite know what to do with religiosity in such a context, but maybe that comes from her quiet uncertainty of how she would deal with as harsh a winter as it had been the year before when Takashi is no longer going to be present on the school’s campus.

They haven’t… Certainly they hadn’t made any definite… They’re not… anything. Aside from friends. Good friends. Who have been glued to each other for the better part of the last year. But they haven’t actually made anything definite in any way.

She enjoys their many moments: the sharing of looks, the wrapping around each other and the caring for each other – Takashi has lent her his second year books for her to read up on during summer, granting her a head-start on much of the work-load in the upcoming year. She knows she appreciates him: his thoughtfulness, his physical proximity, his voice, his sparse verbosity, his physique. _Him_. If asked, she would most certainly not take anyone up on a date and would cite him, at least mentally, as her reason.

But in the official scope of things that might not hold any clout.

As such, she doesn’t bother to correct him when he glues himself to her on the afternoons that become less warm, but it isn’t until he ties his own scarf around her neck – his notorious scarf; upper-class-men have legends about this scrap of fabric that include him defeating an entire squad of yakuza with it – and sending her off to school with it that she knows that, even if he might not say a thing anytime soon… there _is_ something. As unidentified as it may be. It most definitely _is_.

 

**

 

He is the samurai counterpart to her Fujiwara princess during a cosplay and when the Zuka Club attempts yet another robbery of her person – they have, after all, promised to continue their efforts until their success – he is most formidable in defending her. She thinks he maybe has a bit too much fun doing it because when he has the young women trussed up – still respectfully – he bends the knee to her where she has remained seated on her elevated, cushioned platform and offers her the captives in such a gallant way that she cannot help but play the part and coquettishly brush through his uncovered hair as she stands, as if rewarding a warrior in her court that seconds as her clandestine lover, before she makes for the Zuka Club and gives them a stern talking to.

Their clients eat up her demeanor towards Takashi – Kyoya snaps approximately an entire film merely of them –and for the remainder of the event they base their interactions on that one moment that has passed between them. Tamaki and the twins are inconsolable, Mitsukuni is either hyperbolically enthusiastic as a direct result of his sugar consumption or he is overjoyed with what the Host Club has finally witnessed between them. Kyoya looks like a fat house-cat who has gotten three liquid ounces of cream and a canary or two to top the dish off.

 

* * *

 

Akiko is only a little surprised to find their guest ensconced in the confines of the kitchen on the 30th of October. She has never quite come around to ask of what kind of religious persuasion Haruhi-san is, but she doesn’t really think about it.

Knowing the scholarship-student, she would choose not to commit herself fully to a singular religious belief rather than picking the most important holidays to accord her ancestors their due respect and otherwise celebrate happiness.

The temperatures around the country are slowly dropping again and the news-cast are quivering in their boots from the pending necessity to announce the high likelihood of an early snowfall. Considering Takashi-sama’s tendency to remain curled around the woman in front of her, no matter the circumstances, she does not think that Haruhi-san has noticed the more rapid drop in degrees. At least not until now.

She is wearing one of her more atrocious woolen pullovers, bent over a large metal bowl, whisking ceaselessly and in a steady rhythm.

“Cookies?”, she asks as a conversation starter and Haruhi-san looks up once before she returns her focus on the batter in the making, adding a handful of brown-sugar.

“Cake-pops.”, she younger woman and Akiko tastes the word on her lips before she decides to remain and see what _those_ are. Haruhi Fujioka, after all, hasn’t disappointed her yet.

She doesn’t this time around either and when Takashi-sama enters the kitchen at a later hour than necessarily solicited – even for a university student – he sighs at the sight of the perfectly stacked mass of _cake-pops_ around the kitchen.

Haruhi has fallen asleep in an uncomfortable looking position again and Akiko has decided to hold vigil this time around, too. The young Master thanks her with a gentle nod – and she rewards herself with a single cake-pop before she leaves.

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which there is a quiet confession

The first snow-fall doesn’t register until well into the day when she realizes that she is missing the _warmth_ she has grown accustomed to having around her almost every minute. But she is at the school when she tilts her head up and finally notices the cool trickle of flocks on her face.

The condominium she inhabits with her father has been repaired and finished, but considering her father’s deal with Akira-sama, it stands empty, collecting dust while her father is on tournée – the landlord, having heard of Haruhi’s bad bout of luck the winter before, is more inclined to let the apartment stand as is until the return of Ranka at the very least. Haruhi quietly turns her memories to the biting chill she could only remember dimly now, the heavy weight of cold that she had carried with her no matter where she went.

Takashi is a warm memory among those images. Safe. Cozy.

She smiles into the next flurry of flocks and when Satoshi catches up to her at the main gate, she playfully swerves her shoulder into his, surprising herself when he stumbles for a step.

Throughout the car ride, Satoshi petulantly mumbles about unfair sneak-attacks.

 

* * *

 

He smiles at the first sight of snow and stands from where he has been seated at his table, listening to the live-stream of a lecture. He pulls his headphones from the laptop-slot and presses play as he moves to collect a varied assortment of blankets from his cupboards. When he is done, his futon is barely visible and he gets the feeling even Piyo might consider this a giant nest.

Just when his lecture ends, the front door of the compound opens to the loud greeting of his brother and the more quiet greeting of Haruhi. He leans back and waits.

 

**

 

When he wakes up with her in his arms, she is wrapped into a large blanket of her own, pulled into the circle of his arms hidden under a thicker blanket he has thrown over the two of them. The rest of his assorted textiles and plushes is scattered about them in what now does, indeed, look like a nest. Piyo and Choji have curled up on a blanket of their choosing in one corner but even as his observation of the two warms his heart, the tiny puff of air against his throat warms him even more.

His arms tighten around her, pull her closer, until his lips can easily reach the part of her forehead where smooth skin ebbs into soft brown hair. She smells like the shampoo the twins had forwarded her recently – the scent meshes indescribably well with her body chemistry and he hums into her skin.

Her answering, questing, murmur propels him into the carefully constructed start of his confession. He has had months to prepare for this and he has been waiting only for this one moment; had it never come he doesn’t know what he would have done. He might have found a different way to go about it, but it is perfect like this.

Carefully he dips his chin just low enough, pressing his lips to the soft crown of her forehead, feathering kisses over the skin of her face and her fragrant hair – he would ask the twins for its making, maybe he could even get them to divulge their producer, with a bit of well-placed quiet intimidation.

“Mmh.”, she presses into him momentarily, before an uncertain stillness settled over her waking body. “Taka?”

He croons against her right cheekbone, relishing in this curious new addition to the things she’d taken to call him. One of his private favorites is ‘bi-pedally challenged octopus’ – she had been angry with him when she had made that one up and he’d never been as surprised as when he’d realized that she would rather make her own swears up instead of expressing her annoyance with tried and tested insults.

“What are you doing?”

He frowns, smoothing his lips to her forehead more insistently. He is certain that she is not dead to feeling, her reaction time indicates full faculties of her mental capacities as well so…

She snorts at a particularly convincing kiss. “I know that you’re kissing my face just… Why?”

“Ah.”, he pulls her closer, slipping a daring hand into the fold of her blanket-wrap at her back and spreading it over the silk of her sleeping attire – if her nape had been temptation then this has to be outright seduction. He purrs when her breath catches against his throat and his other hand sinks into her brown locks, carefully, conscious of not putting too much weight behind it lest she wants to escape his embrace. He sure hopes not but one could never be certain.

Haruhi burrows even closer when his hands finally still; he need not have worried.

“Yeah.”, she whispers then, her own hands slipping from her cocoon and hesitantly twining over and into his shirt as she lines the rest of her body up against his. She has to be aware of the effect she has on him, but she doesn’t move from where she’s molded herself against him. “Yeah, okay.”

A deep, satisfied rumble loosens itself from some unknown place deep in his chest at that and he curls fully around her, pulling the blankets over them to seal them into their new cocoon and when Haruhi turns around to fit more fully against him, he finally allows himself to give in to the temptation of her nape and presses his lips to it.

“Mmh.”, she sighs quietly, fiddling with his fingers. “Comfy.” Her muscles slacken into slumber then and outside the snow falls.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (look! kisses!!!)


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which we wrap things up

It’s not that they’re hiding – much. But with the winter being as it is and the Club’s experience of Haruhi-and-Takashi last year, they don’t bat much of an eye when Haruhi comes to school dressed in Takashi’s legendary scarf as well as often enough pulled into his hoodies, the good ones that still smell like him. Autumn is short, as had spring been, and before they know it, snowfall is back ton the daily menu even in Tokyo. Haruhi finds comfort in the warm coat Takashi had gifted her for her birthday as well as the continuous – preventive, as Mitsukuni calls them – embraces of the tall university student showers her with whenever her can. She gets the feeling Mitsukuni picks the back-roads of the campus not so much for the scenery or to let her in on their secrets rather than the privacy they allow them.

Host Hours are mostly an exception, but not always.

 

**

 

When comes December, snow is joined by an icy gale from the North that shakes and rattles the old condominium hard enough that even Ranka leaves it behind in favor of touring Japan with his troupe, gleefully sashaying over the stages while lip-syncing to Celine Dion. That he is in Tokyo when it happens is pure coincidence.

It’s an accident this time. She knows it is, because while she does grace the frigid and hauntingly familiar depths of the courtyard’s fountain once more, there are, too, hands to pull her out of its terrifying grasp within a second. There’s a mop of black hair, already pushing-pulling her towards what she hopes will be the Host Club and its piping hot heating units, while a shock blond hair remains behind, loud, angry yells echoing through the agonizing gusts of wind that bite at her ears with vindictive glee.

She prevails until the muscles in her calf cramp up and she literally falls through the doors of the Music Room. The buzz she quiets with her dramatic entrance even as the person at her side pulls her up and into a standing position gives her a quickly ignored indicator that she would have been late either way, but currently she is dripping mad with the chilling remnants of gelid courtyard fountain.

By the bee-line she makes for him, she thinks he should know what is coming next, but as she spills into the immobile arms and lap of what she hopes is Takashi, she listens as the painfully unwanted familiar rush of white-noise is interrupted by a sharp inhale and a low, male grunt, before strong limbs wrap around her and she is bundled into _heat_ that stings for a moment before her body greedily sucks it up.

“ _How?_ ”, he rasps when the white-noise in her ears starts to die down and reveals itself to be the shrill, disapproving shrieks of Tamaki and the twins as well as the wondering inquiries of the females around them. She swallows around the shiver that interrupts her response when he uncurls his legs to accept a blanket that comes out of nowhere.

Her teeth chatter as she curls up into a ball again blanket trapping the warmth around her that much better than her wet uniform ever could.

“Nekozawa has been weirdly active around me recently.”, she quietly speculates but doesn’t think that this is what he meant. His arms squeeze around her in admonishment but she doesn’t mind too much. More of the warmth. More of the _safe_.

“ _Haruhi._ ”, he tries again, but she merely huddles into the circle of his arms, as her hands reach up to rub at her pin-prick-ears, biting back the tears of frustration as her faculties return to her.

“Shhh.”, she gargles quietly. She cannot believe this has happened to her again. “Cold and wet, remember?”

“Rrgh.”, he rumbles in reply – and she knows he remembers.

 

* * *

 

Akira-san had been kind enough to invite him to the compound for his upcoming week of reprieve from the tour and so, when the blond he remembers from about a year ago as being _smaller_ , trudges through the front door with a wry but contrite smile he is there to witness the Morinozuka-head’s stare of curious disapproval.

“Gomen-nasai, oji-san.”, the young man bows, and when he straightens, he gives another bow to Ranka.

“Welcome home, Ranka-san.”, he finds himself charmed – as usual. Out of the seven aspiring men among the Host Club Haruhi had reluctantly presented to him, both Takashi Morinozuka as well as Mitsukuni Haninozuka had made the most favorable first impression. A part of him assumes that it came with the advantage of maturity earned by age, but he knows, too, that age is never a guarantor for experience.

“Haru-chan took another dive in the fountain.”, the young man announces then, as he pulls off his shoes and next to him, Akira-san’s shoulders drop in wonder.

“Again?”, he muses, eyes sliding towards his nephew. “It _was_ an accident this time, yes?”

Ranka remains silent. Takashi had proven a reliable source concerning the plethora of incidents Haruhi herself would not share with him out of her desire to not burden him with her problems while he was out of the country. He appreciates his daughter’s thoughtfulness, but he, too, appreciates the tall man’s decision to keep him informed nevertheless. Not knowing sets Ranka’s teeth on edge a whole lot more than knowing what was going on. He’d been informed about her involuntary stint in the frozen fountain just last winter; he’d been informed that the miscreant had been dealt with too – without Haruhi’s knowledge.

The young Haninozuka nods. “Yasuchika has taken it upon himself to exact retribution nevertheless.”

Akira-san nods and motions a young-ish maid who smoothly stands with enviable grace that he supposes comes from years and years of practice ere she bows again and leaves the room. He turns towards his nephew again and gives Ranka a look.

“We may want to adjourn into the living room, if you please.”

A servant shows the way and Ranka _adjourns_ with them, registering the sound of a shower just down the hall. When he looks, the maid from earlier is seated in front of an open door that must be the bathroom, two piles of clothing next to her and he doesn’t have to guess twice to come to the conclusion that his daughter is likely to not be alone in the room. However, with the maid watching… He sighs and accepts the hot cup of tea the other man offers him. The ways of the rich are convoluted and mysterious to him – kami-sama know how Haruhi navigates this world.

It takes time before the splashing gets louder for a second and then ceases, creaking wood and slurping steps echo down the hall before two-- three doors slide and then there is silence, interrupted only by the gentle swish of cloth against hard-wood floor followed by quiet.

Akira stands when two more doors have slid and calm has settled again. When he quietly bids him follow, Ranka does. He is not quite certain what to expect when the Morinozuka walks them towards open shoji-doors but he finds his daughter bundled up tightly in a woolen blanket, haplessly draped over the shoulder of a reading Morinozuka like a live-burrito. A tanuki has made its home on her shoulder, curled into her nape and he cannot believe--

He hides his face in his hand as he shakes his head.  
Heat Hogger Haruhi strikes again.

 

**

 

“I do beg pardon for my daughter’s impudence.”, he starts chagrined when they return to the living-room, where they are joined by the ephemeral beauty that is Kaede-san. “It is unfortunate she has picked your son as her victim.”

“Ah?”, Akira-san gives him an almost incredulous look over the beautiful table they sit down at. Kaede-san is bending forward in her seat, offering him a batch of tea-bites that Ranka thinks he discovers the hand of his daughter in. She also slips a cup of hot tea towards him and judged by the scent alone he is not certain he would even know its name if he guessed.

“She has been this way since she was born.”, he admits instead. “Kotoko was… slender and often stressed even during her pregnancy. The doctors told me that these were two main reasons Haruhi was born prematurely.”

He bites into a petit-four and, indeed, it is the work of Haruhi – he swallows around the softness and takes a sip of the tea. The combination is divine and he knows he will never have something like it anywhere else but here. The taste makes the stone is his throat a little smaller.

“She needed an incubator to help her along in her first few days-- she was so _small_.”

Somewhere he still has a photo of his darling daughter, bundled up in a diaper; the first look he got at her, through the plastic glass of a hospital-issued incubator. They hadn’t been certain, for a while, if her lungs had developed sufficiently. But his little girl had been a fighter even then.

“Her body’s Thermoregulation is drastically insufficient; which is a small price to pay in the large picture but-- Haruhi has-- the tendency to seek out heat-sources where she can. Indiscriminately.”

Kaede-san is giving him a soothing smile. “We have noticed, Ranka-san.”

“Again.”, he swallows, “I apologize for her behavior.”

The woman waves it away elegantly and Akira-san has asip of tea before a wry smile makes its way onto his lips; mirrored by his wife, who gives him a slightly apprehensive look before she replies: “It is only fair then… that we apologize for our son’s behavior come summer...”

And Ranka stills for a second before-- “You mean when she is literally an ice-block no matter the outside temperatures.”

“Ah.”, Akira nods, putting down his empty cup.

“Ah.”, he replies.

Outside, the snow falls.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (thank you for your patience)


End file.
